The living expenses are way more expensive living in London than in Sydney, there is no way studying in London would be at a similar expense to studying in Sydney... I was told it would cost me about $12000 Australian dollars just to live in London for 6 months while I was on exchange, and from what I have seen of the prices so far this is probably true. A room in a sharehouse in London or in a college hall is about 80 to 90 quid a week (it's hard to find much cheaper apparently, have a look online and you will see this is so), so about 220 Aussie dollars a week. Multiply this by 52 and you are already up to nearly $12000, maybe more if you have to pay utilities on top of that. Add textbooks, food (which I was told is about 50-60 pounds a week by my university, maybe if you go really really stingy 40, which still adds up to to about $4500 AU a year for food if you are being tight), transport (depends on what zone you live in, but for a travelcard it is between about 22 and 35 pounds a week, if we say an average of about 25 pounds a week that is about $3000 Australian dollars a year just to use public transport!) and all the other junk that comes with living.... it's so blooddy expensive over there. I live really well in Sydney (I'm from out of town) and spend about $14000 a year, so it's almost like for every dollar you spend in Sydney you spend a pound in the UK but a pound is almost 2.5 aussie dollars.
Anyway, if you can afford it to do a degree over there I envy you.... I'm so looking forward to my exchange though, but six months is all I could afford! I've never been to the UK or Europe, I'm so excited!
Just curious though, so are the international student fees about $20000 a year over there at most unis and for most degrees? That's actually not that bad, I looked up to study at Columbia university in New York and it was about $35000 a year (US!!!) just for the fees!
How does it work going through UCAS? Do they convert your UAI in to some sort of equivalent to the AAB type system thing they use for the A levels?
