EU to Double Study Abroad Numbers

As part of the European Commission’s continued drive to use education as a unifying and Europeanisation tool, it has announced new proposals to increase the numbers of those studying abroad under the ‘Erasmus for All’ programme.

The proposal sees the numbers of EU citizens travelling abroad within the EU rising from 1.5 million (under current schemes), to over 2.2 million receiving grants to spend some of the course abroad. This would include loan guarantees to some 330,000 masters students.

An average of 400,000 a year currently receive grants for studying, training or volunteering abroad from the EU; and this is expected to almost double in the next 7 years.

The fly in the ointment is that the ‘Erasmus for All’ proposal would need to get through the 27 member Council of Ministers, and then the European Parliament. With the present state of the Eurozone this might be more of an aspiration than an expectation.