Higher Education Cost when married to a UK citizen.

I am a British citizen who has just moved over to the US to study for my PhD and if all goes to plan, I will be here for at least 4 years. However, if I decide to enroll at another university after I return to the UK, I will have to pay international fees because I will have been out of the country for more than 3 years - even though I was born and raised in the UK.

Not exactly. It depends whether you maintained Ordinary Residence, i.e. a regular and habitual mode of life in the UK.  If you are only absent from the UK for study in a foreign country, and otherwise would have been in the UK, then that would not automatically break Ordinary Residence.  However if you abandoned your UK life 100% and basically moved to the US, it would be hard to prove that you have maintained Ordinary Residence.

Lots of info at http://www.ukcisa.org.uk

just to add to what ksand24 said- not only do you have to have been resident for 3 years to get home fees, you also need to be "settled", ie you must have ILR or British citizenship. 

Under the main formula yes, but don't forget you are also "home" if you are the relevant family member of an EU national (including UK nationals), and you have been ordinarily resident in the European Economic Area, Switzerland or the UK/EU overseas territories for 3 years before the first day of the first academic year.

And although you are starting Higher Eduication, not Further Education, it's maybe useful to add that for FE in England only (not other parts of the UK), you are "home" if you have been married and resident in the UK for one year, or legally resident in England for 3 years, whatever you immigration status.

There are actually 10 different categories of people who qualify for home fees, and a number of additional concessions for Further Education only, and for most of them you do not have to be formally settled in the UK:

http://www.ukcisa.org.uk/files/pdf/info_sheets/tuition_fees_ewni.pdf

Thank you very much for posting that link, sah10406. It's very useful!

just to add to what ksand24 said- not only do you have to have been resident for 3 years to get home fees, you also need to be "settled", ie you must have ILR or British citizenship.  And there's a deadline for this depending on when you start the course- if the course starts in September, you usually must fit the requirements (3 years residence + ILR) before September 1 of the first year in order to be charged home fees.

I was just going to say.  You can't be here on a simple work permit.  It takes 5 years of being on a work permit to get an ILR (or so the International Office tells me), and after you get that you qualify for home fees.

I was just going to say.  You can't be here on a simple work permit.  It takes 5 years of being on a work permit to get an ILR (or so the International Office tells me), and after you get that you qualify for home fees.

Like I said above, if you are the relevant family member (including spouse) of a UK national, you do not need to have ILR to be "home" for fees, under the category "EU nationals and family members" (see Category 3 in the document linked above).  But you do need to have 3 years ordinary residence in the European Economic Area (including the UK) before the first day of the first academic year.  And since most spouses of UK nationals would be settled in their own right anyway by the time they had lived here for 2 years, let alone 3 years, this rule only benefits those spouses who, for example, have switched from a working status to spouse, but are not yet settled.