Help!

This is what the OU says currently:

You will be eligible to pay a UK fee if you meet ALL the criteria below:
You have been granted 'indefinite leave to remain in the UK' (i.e. you are not on a temporary visa)
You have been ordinarily resident in the UK for at least three years prior to the first day of the academic year of your chosen module (excluding anytime spent in the UK on a student visa)
You will be resident in the UK on the first day of the academic year of your module.

http://www.openuniversity.edu/faqs

It is probably like the citizenship issue, yes as a spouse you only need to be here three years, but you need your ILR and that now takes five years.

And I would still be subject to the international school fees even if the course is covered by the NHS, correct?

I believe you're not allowed to take courses that are paid for by the NHS until you are free from immigration control.

I believe you're not allowed to take courses that are paid for by the NHS until you are free from immigration control.

I think this is correct because there is no way for the institution to separately charge you for the course.  You would need to contact them though, because I think this does depend.

I'll jump in and say that qualification/certification requirements are very different between the UK and US. I did all my education in the states and it has been pretty much useless/unrecognized over here. So it might be more worthwhile to have a job for a few months rather than take a course.

I contacted a local university in Guildford and they informed me that I cannot be accepted into a nursing program because I am an international student.
So, just to clarify, I have to wait 5 years to get the home fees, and the NHS will cover nursing school? Or will I not be able to until I am a citizen??

It should be five years, unless the nursing programme has some special requirements.

It is probably like the citizenship issue, yes as a spouse you only need to be here three years, but you need your ILR and that now takes five years.

Sorry, this is not correct.  Having ILR and three years' residence in the UK before the course is one way to be a home fee payer (Category 1 in the list below).  However there are 10 categories of eligibility, most of which do not require ILR. 

Here are the categories for England (rules differ slightly for other UK countries).  Note that the spouse of a UK national would be eligible under Category 3, with or without ILR, as long as they had 3 years residence in the EEA before the first day of the first academic year:

http://www.ukcisa.org.uk/student/info_sheets/tuition_fees_e_he.php

Thanks for those links sah10406.  May have opened a can of worms for me though...   

Well, I could have started my course 6 months earlier then.  Not that it really matters I suppose, although every uni I looked at said you needed ILR.  I wonder if that is to dissuade people.

Is this based on an EU ruling, or something the Universities come up with on their own?  I doubt once the first of the five year ILR people start coming through that unis will want to lose out on any possible extra money they might make off people.  On the other hand, there are people who won't a course if they have to pay more.

Is this based on an EU ruling, or something the Universities come up with on their own? 

Neither. It is UK law, and has been for many years. It is not lawful to charge someone the overseas fee if they meet one of the home fee categories.

I just didn't bother applying anywhere because they all said you need ILR.

If it is UK law I wonder if they will change it when the 5 year people start coming through.

If it is UK law I wonder if they will change it when the 5 year people start coming through.

What would be the point or reason for such a change?

As I said up thread, if you leave it to people who have ILR you can charge them as foreign students and get lots more money. 

But then you lose people who might have gone if they get home fees.

These ones offer top up distance nursing degrees from the US:

Distance Education in Indiana:

Ball State University
http://cms.bsu.edu/academics/collegesanddepartments/distance

Indiana State University
http://www.indstate.edu/distance/

University of Southern Indiana
http://www.usi.edu/distance/

Indiana University
http://iuonline.iu.edu/

As I said up thread, if you leave it to people who have ILR you can charge them as foreign students and get lots more money. 

But then you lose people who might have gone if they get home fees.

But it isn't, never was, and never will be that only those with ILR pay home fees.   The Fees and Awards regulations which say who who pays "home" fees have no connection or correlation with the immigration rules about eligibility for ILR.

The spouse of a British national pays home fees for a course they start after 3 ordinary residence in the UK, whatever their immigration status.  This will be so even if the lead-in to ILR becomes 10 years.