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ERASMUS

Is Erasmus really worth its budget boost?

Erasmus, the world's biggest student exchange, is to expand after 25 years of funding European students to go abroad. But with the EU budget being slashed, does the grant scheme deserve a 50 percent boost to its budget?

Published: 21 November 2013 13:53 CET
Is Erasmus really worth its budget boost?
Many of the 40,000 Spanish Erasmus students abroad this year almost lost their grants after the country's Education Ministry decided to only give scholarships to the neediest students. Photo:dpa

Since its launch in 1988, the EU's flagship student programme has paid grants to over three million Europeans in higher education to study or work elsewhere in the Union.

The 2011-2012 academic year saw 3,328 learning institutions across Europe sending their students abroad on Erasmus placements, among them 33,363 of Germany's best and brightest.

And the "Erasmus+" project approved by the European parliament on Tuesday will invest in the scheme further, merging the student exchange with six other education initiatives to form a "streamlined" programme to give financial support to 4 million people, at a cost of €14.7 billion over seven years.

Around €4.9 billion of that is dedicated to grants for higher education and it represents around a 50 percent increase on Erasmus' budget for the previous seven years.

The new unified system will extend beneficiaries to include "youth leaders, volunteers and young sportsmen", according to the Parliament.

But with austerity-hit member states wrestling the EU's next seven-year budget down by €15 billion to €960 billion – the first cut to a multi-year plan in the Union's history – some are questioning why more taxpayer cash is being spent on non-means-tested grants to university students, while other initiatives are seeing cuts.

Stuart Agnew, an MEP from the anti-EU UK Independence Party, told the European Parliament earlier this month that he saw Erasmus as an unnecessary and "glorified" alternative to national-run programmes, and attacked it as the EU "cynically using" young people to "further its own objectives" in fostering "European values."

Spanish education minister Jose Ignacio Wert also criticized the Erasmus+ plans recently, when he claimed Spain – which sent and received more Erasmus students than any other EU member state in the 2011/2012 academic year – would have to halve their grant payments under the new programme's funding system.

But EU education spokesman Dennis Abbot dismissed the Spanish minister's announcement as "rubbish" and "totally false."

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STUDY

Spanish grandpa, 80, heading to Italy as Erasmus student

One of the world's oldest Erasmus students has picked Italy for his study-abroad semester, thanks to his memories of seeing opera here 40 years ago.

Published: 15 February 2018 13:55 CET
Spanish grandpa, 80, heading to Italy as Erasmus student
Miguel Castillo being interviewed for Antena 3 Noticias.

Miguel Castillo, 80, will leave his native Spain on Monday to head to the University of Verona, where he won an Erasmus grant to pursue his studies in modern history.

“I opted for Verona in Italy because I was there 42 years ago to see Maria Callas perform,” the grandfather of six told Spanish newspaper Las Provincias.

Castillo returned to academia a few years ago after a career as a notary. He was a few years into a more typical retirement when he suffered a heart attack at the age of 75, prompting him to rethink how he wanted to spend the remainder of his days.

“On the road to recovery I told myself, 'I would like to do something beyond the classic napping’,” he explained.

So he enrolled for a degree in modern history at Valencia University and each day attends classes with students who are a quarter of his age.

Determined to make the most of his university years, Castillo applied for the EU's student exchange programme, which each year sends hundreds of thousands of students to other universities across Europe for anywhere between three months to a year at a time. 

He hasn't signed up for the full student experience in Verona, though: he won't be staying in a college dorm. 

“My wife is coming with me and we will stay in a hotel for a while and then move into an apartment,” he explained. “My wife says that she doesn’t see us at a pyjama party.”

With one of the world's oldest populations, Italy is becoming accustomed to seeing older faces in all walks of life, even those once reserved for youngsters. 

In 2016, it sent one of its own senior citizens – Laura Peccara, 61 years old at the time – to Spain, for a six-month Erasmus exchange in Madrid. 

“I was talking to my son about university and Erasmus when I had a lightbulb moment: wouldn't it be great to have an experience that didn't exist in my day,” Peccara told Italian magazine Donna Moderna upon her return. 

As Peccara learned, there is no age limit to the Erasmus programme – so any mature students who are interested should apply. As Castillo says to others his age: “Don’t lock yourself up at home, open up to the world, because we can contribute so much and can also receive a lot from society.”