06 December 2007

British students taking up Australian working holiday visas despite uni costs

Despite the rising costs of university education more UK students than ever are taking gap years abroad, with an Australian working holiday visa a popular option. Young people are not deterred by high university fees but increasingly choose to work abroad during their gap year, according to Gapyear.com.

"The fastest growing kinds of gap years are now earning money for university or doing work experience relative to your degree or what you want to do after," explained Tom Griffiths of Gapyear.com.

"A lot of people have to work out what they want to do at university, so now we see a lot of people taking a gap year to do work experience. People do work experience and find out what it's like to be a lawyer [for example]," he added.

Alternatively, casual work such as picking bananas or grapes, or bar work in a city like Sydney, are popular ways to earn money while abroad. Mr Griffiths noted that if students take a gap year they have 15 months between when they finish their A-levels and starting university. So funding travel and university costs by working during a gap year is recommended.

NatWest recently estimated that 24 per cent of those applying to universities in 2006 took a gap year and deferred to 2007.

Interested in going on a working holiday to Australia? More information is available on the Australian Visa Bureau's Australian working holiday visa pages. The Australian Visa Bureau makes the process easy, offering clients a number of exclusive offers. Confirm your eligibility by taking the Australia Online Visa Assessment.