The University of Edinburgh has announced its intention to extend its summer school programme with a new range of courses established by the College of Humanities and Social Science.
The new courses hail from a variety of disciplines including architecture, drama theory, linguistics, psychology, business studies, history, illustration and Swahili.
The summer school will run from June until August 2015 and will offer current Edinburgh University students study abroad programs at partnered institutions in India, Chile and an unannounced country in Africa.
The University says that the courses are “available for all students at home and abroad” though eligibility is actually limited to students achieving marks equivalent to a grade point average (GPA) of 3.0 or above.
Most of the courses cost £575 per week with course length varying from one to eight weeks.
The university will provide summer school students accommodation at Pollock Halls where accommodation fees can cost anywhere from £168 to a whopping £469 per week.
Including accommodation fees, summer school students could be expected to shell out over £3,000 for a three-week course, while students of the summer school’s eight week Business in the Arts course could have to pay over £8,000 on tuition and accommodation alone.
Scottish students will also be expected to pay to take part in the summer school’s courses.
University of Edinburgh students looking to take part in the summer study abroad programme are eligible to apply for a bursary to partially fund their course.
Whether bursaries will be awarded to summer school students from other institutions remains unclear.
The move to extend the summer school program appears to be part of the university’s strategy to attract more international students.
In recent years, competition between universities in the international student market has heightened as international students are worth as much as £3 billion a year to UK universities.
Earlier this year, the Higher Education Funding Council for England reported a significant decrease in international and EU students at English universities.
Though The University of Edinburgh has not experienced as sharp a decline in its admission of international students, the extension of the summer school programme can be seen as a means of remaining competitive in a tough market.
The summer school will also be cashing in on the hustle and bustle of the festival season by boasting that some of its courses will provide “exclusive access” to Edinburgh’s numerous summer arts festivals.
Applications for the summer school are set to open on 1 December 2014.
Applicants for the summer school must be current undergraduate or postgraduate students and meet the university’s standards of English language proficiency.