For Alice Watkins, a Manchester University student, a year in Paris, then Madrid, as part of her degree was a dream. Now, with the turmoil of Brexit, she is preparing to arrive in France this summer with nowhere to live and no idea whether the money will still be there to support her.

“It’s horrible not knowing,” Watkins says. “We’ve been told to take at least £1,200 of our own cash to cover us for the first six weeks, and that we can’t realistically sort any accommodation before we arrive. Turning up abroad with nowhere to live is a big stress.”

Last Wednesday the European parliament voted to guarantee funding for UK students already studying abroad on the Erasmus+ student exchange programme, in the event of a no-deal Brexit on 29 March. It also promised to continue supporting European students already in the UK on the scheme.

But uncertainty hangs over the 17,000 British students who had planned to study in Europe under Erasmus+ from this September. A technical note, published by the government at the end of January, failed to guarantee any funding for the scheme if Britain leaves the EU with no deal.

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In recent weeks both Spain and Norway have advised their students planning to study in the UK to go elsewhere.

Watkins, like many language students, regards a period living and studying in Europe as a crucial part of her degree in French and Spanish. “We are people who plan to live and work abroad in the future. We were too young to vote in the referendum and we are the ones whose future is being affected. It’s all such a mess,” she says.

Vivienne Stern, director of the international arm of Universities UK, the vice-chancellors’ body, says the organisation had been under the impression that the government would create a national alternative to the Erasmus+ scheme to protect students in the event of no deal. She says, however, there is no evidence of this happening.

“As we understand it, there is no money on the table for an alternative scheme, and no work is under way in the DfE to prepare one.”

Universities UK also says British students currently on Erasmus+ in Europe have been getting in touch over fears they will left without health insurance. Many have insurance that stipulates they have an EU health insurance card, and are struggling to switch provider while abroad.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Joseph Corcoran, far left, with other current Erasmus+ students in Madrid. ‘With Brexit, students have been forgotten,’ he says.

Students who spend time studying abroad are at an advantage, research published by UUK shows: they outperform their peers in the classroom and job market, being 19% more likely to gain a first and 20% less likely to be unemployed.

In addition, a CBI/Pearson skills survey has shown that seven in 10 small and medium-sized companies think that future executives will need foreign language skills and international experience.

Newcastle University has been so exasperated with the uncertainty surrounding Erasmus+, that it has invested £1m in underwriting exchanges for its students for 2019-20.

Prof Richard Davies, pro vice-chancellor, global, for the university, says: “We want our students to be world citizens. Months ago we understood the government would underwrite this, but in December their language about what would happen with a no deal suddenly seemed far less confident.”

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Davies is also concerned about losing exchange students from Europe, which he says would leave a major gap in British institutions. “We want our university to remain truly multicultural. It should feel welcoming to as many nations as possible and Erasmus+ is a big part of that.”

He says: “It is especially important for modern languages degrees that students have this chance to practise their language and immerse themselves in a different culture. European exchanges are also especially useful for our law and business students.”

Prof Colin Riordan, vice-chancellor of Cardiff University, says that studying abroad has “huge benefits, at relatively little cost”. He says: “We’ve created a generation of mobile students, but Britain is still lagging far behind other European countries on the numbers who choose to do this.”

Riordan is lobbying the government to set up an alternative exchange scheme as a back-up. “If we believe the rhetoric about global Britain we really should be doing this,” he says.

The threat of no deal has affected the plans not only of British students, but of mainland European students for the next academic year. At the end of last month, the Spanish National Mobility Agency began advising those with places at UK universities to consider other countries instead. Norway, which subscribes to the EU scheme although it is not an EU member, has been doing the same.

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Stern says: “I do have some sympathy with the Spanish and the Norwegians. The difficulty is that if you’re a student going abroad in 2019 you should already have made a bid for funding, and we still don’t really know what is happening.”

Meanwhile, Ben Cisneros, a third-year Cambridge University law student who studied in Madrid thanks to Erasmus+ funding last year, says the experience made him a stronger person. “It was a life experience. People underestimate how difficult it is to go and set up somewhere alone.”

And Joseph Corcoran, a Leeds University student studying at a university in Murcia, Spain, for a year on Erasmus+, says the experience has been invaluable for his language skills. “It was quite a culture shock, because this isn’t a touristy city; it’s real Spain. So I have had to use my Spanish all the time, and after a while it becomes second nature.”

Corcoran has joined a tight-knit community of Erasmus students from all over Europe. “This experience has been something I will never forget,” he says. “I feel that with Brexit, people have been focused on issues like trade, and students have been forgotten. But that’s wrong. We are the future.”

A DfE spokesperson said: “Irrespective of the outcome of EU exit negotiations, the government wants UK and European countries to continue to give students the chance to benefit from each other’s world-leading universities post-exit. Under the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement, Erasmus+ students will be protected until the end of Erasmus programme in 2020. In the event that the UK leaves the EU with no agreement in place, the government has guaranteed that it will cover the payment of awards to UK applicants for all successful Erasmus+ bids submitted before the end of 2020.”

• This article was amended on 20 March 2019 to add a statement from the Department for Education.