Hi everyone, I'm trying this forum instead of writing another email to the university and hearing the same sort of reply so
I have applied for masters in Design from University of Leeds. I recently moved to UK with my husband who is a British national where as I have Pakistani nationality. I completed their fee assessment form and they are rating me as an international student. The thing is the course leader told me that she had a student whose case was similar to mine like she was married to a British guy and that she was on the spouse visa when she applied for the masters degree and that student paid the home/EU fee. this really encouraged me to go ahead with my app. but now I am being told that I will have 2 pay overseas fee. I don't want to pay the international fee, i cant apply 4 the int. scholarships either because they require you to be physically present in the country you are applying from. I really want to do my masters in this year so any ideas what I should do? Dont want to be waiting four years for UK nationality...who knows I wud have time to do it then or not!! Any ideas??

Your nationality (and that of your husband) is irrelevant - it is all about your length of residence in the UK. You have to have been living in the UK or EU for three years before the start of the course to be able to pay home fees. Universities are strict about this and I imagine the other student you mention had spent 3 years here before starting the course.

I don't know the answer in your case but I had a similar thing with a friend of mine who is a refugee. Luckily for him he knows the law relating to refugees inside out. The person in officialdom didn't, and had out of date information, and of course as my friend had a vested interested in what he was saying the official couldn't just believe him. It got sorted in the end. The scary thing was, for all the people who hadn't know as much as him, they would have believed officaldom and that would have been it. So I really think you need to get proper advice from an organisation that know the rules relating to this inside out. They change (this was what happened with my friend, and he knew they had), and although people here can tell you all sorts of things from their experience, you need someone who is absolutely spot on and current.

Although like Alice I am no expert, and you do need to find someone who is an expert on this - I know some of my students have contacted these people

http://www.ukcisa.org.uk/student/fees_student_support.php

However, as a rule I would expect Bewildered to be correct. Your nationality is less important than your residency; if you have continuously lived in the UK for three years you can be a Home student. There is a condition that you do not have to be resident for three years if you are classed as "Settled" in the UK - this means that you are a resident (you are) with no immigration restrictions, for example "the Right of Indefinite Leave to Remain", which you may have given your British Husband. In this case, it would be worth speaking to a UKCISA advisor, or to a specialist immigration solicitor. Whilst a solicitor is not cheap, it will save you thousands over the next year or so!!!

Thanks a lot for responding guys, I really appreciate it.

Well I have only been here in UK for 8 months and guess i il have to wait to do masters then. thanks sleepy head for the link , I il check that out and will write to them. Its was becoming frustrating to just hang around and not being able to do anything productive, I had thought if i could join uni for masters it will be interesting and I il make friends, improve my skills, learn the language and stuff but looks like i il just have to look at my other options :)

Thanks again everyone, This forum is pretty cool

Cheers