'I swapped student life in the UK for Caribbean island - and saved myself £88k in tuition fees'

A student has moved to a Caribbean island for university - saving herself £88k in tuition fees in the process. Tamara Leslie, 20, started a biomedical course at the University of Sussex but quit after a week - when she discovered she could get the same qualification for less.

The student, who is originally from Papua New Guinea but has been living in Eastbourne, East Sussex, would have forked out £16k-a-year in tuition fees in the UK as an international student. She would have spent £128k on a three-year undergraduate degree and a further five years in medicine - as she did not initially get into medical school.

She looked into other options and realised she could study medicine on a five-year course at New Anglia University, Anguilla - costing roughly £8,000 a year. Tamara is currently doing a year on a pre-med course before a four-year medical degree.

She packed up her life to move 4,220 miles and loves the "freedom" and "independence" it has given her. Tamara said: “You have those moments where you just think about your whole life and you plan everything.

“All my friends are going to finish university and I’ll still be there. I understand medicine is an arduous course but I thought that surely there must be another way to get this done a bit quicker. Ultimately the money and the time and everything coming to New Anglia just won me over."

Tamara had to pay more for her tuition fees in the UK as she is not a UK citizen. As she did not get accepted onto a medicine course initially, she was completing a three-year undergraduate course in biomedical science first.

She said: "I was a permanent resident in England at the time but I wasn’t a citizen so obviously it wouldn’t have applied to me to have normal tuition fees as a home student."

But Tamara quickly worked out the course was not for her in September 2024. She said: “Class size is definitely a big influence on it. In my classes in Brighton it felt like it was 100 to 150 of us. I couldn’t really raise my hand because I felt I would waste other students' time so everyone just keeps quiet."

Tamara contacted SME, Study Medicine Europe, and went through various university options with an agent after starting at Sussex. She said: "She gave me all these options of European universities to start next September, but this was the only option to start early in January.

“I submitted my application, and I think I got accepted the next day, so I dropped out of university and then I came here."

Tamara said the Caribbean appealed because of the " weather and location". She said: "It reminded me of my home country. It kind of felt familiar to me.

"I think your environment influences you a lot, so it would be helpful for me to be somewhere nice and sunny rather than somewhere just cold."

The degree will be recognised everywhere as it meets the GMC criteria - a set of standards for those who train to become doctors. To start with she was the only person on her pre-med course, which allows her to experience “a more personal relationship with your teacher”.

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Despite having no family in the Caribbean, the people there have made her feel welcome and a part of the community. Tamara said: “Every time you walk into stores everyone says good morning.

"It’s just so cheery and happy. I feel like that’s why I didn’t get a chance to be homesick - because it didn’t take me too long to connect with people.

“When I travelled to the UK for the first time as a kid, people were a bit closed off and it took me a while to make friends. Here, time isn’t a factor - you can click with someone immediately.”

Tamara pays "roughly the same" same for her student accommodation but gets more bang for her buck. She pays $500 a month for rent.

She said: "I remember looking at accommodation when I was going to Sussex and the cheapest was roughly £400 per month. With the money I'm paying here I definitely wouldn't be able to get this with whatever I would have paid in the UK.

"Here we've got a balcony, an outdoor sofa, a living room. It's crazy. It's also roughly about a six minute drive to campus."

She has a part-time job working at a beach bar, which helps her fund daily expenses in Anguilla. Because her course is aimed at her getting her qualifications as quickly as possible, her timetable is 8am to 3pm every week day - instead of having lectures spread out like it is in the UK.

She said: “It can get hard sometimes in the sense that school can get quite tasking but I think it all depends on how you manage your time. I've been balancing it pretty well so far.”

Tamara plans to complete her final two years of her course in the UK to do her clinical rotations, as New Anglia University offers these in the UK. She said: “It’s worth my money to be here, but when it comes to it, I’d rather shadow the NHS because the healthcare here is a bit slow.

“I think we, as humans, get so stuck in a cycle which we’re so used to, but I think it’s best to go out of your shell because it’s the best way to grow as an individual. My biggest advice is to go for it.”