Erasmus Scholarship

Today, I am going to talk about a subject that concerns us all at Erasmus. Depending on the country, things change, but in particular, the Spaniards took many months waiting for the government of Spain to say something about how much money they will give us for scholarships. And finally, yesterday I came to my latest news on the final amount we received toward scholarships for the 2012/2013 academic year.

Surely, most will have already been informed by your universities on the subject, but as I have not seen anyone has spoken on the subject, I will inform you in case anyone does not know. By the way, if any Erasmus in any other country is curious about the misery of scholarships that we receive from the Spaniards, you may inform us also.

Scholarships in Spain

I must say at the outset that in Spain we received the scholarship from three different sources. Most are supposed to come from the Ministry of Education, culture and sport, i. e. the Government of Spain; elsewhere in our region, in my case, of Andalusia, which is the autonomous community of Spain where more money is devoted to scholarships for students; and finally the part of the Autonomous Agency for European Educational Programs (OAPEE), so we understand, the European Parliament.

As a fourth help, your home university can give a small grant, but are not obligated to do so. It all depends on the treasury of each university.

For example, the University of Seville was chosen a few years ago as the best Spanish university administering Erasmus scholarships.

Others, such as my university, Pablo de Olavide (UPO) in Seville, last year, after the cuts in grants produced by the Government, pledged to grant scholarships to Erasmus students amounting to 600 euros, for all awarded with the same amount of money that have had Erasmus in recent years. Due to the crisis and the economic downturn of the university, aid granted took many months, but still performed.

This year, the situation is even worse at my university. Therefore, I have not yet ruled on whether we will lend extra help or not.

However, there are other universities such as Malaga, that have a good economic situation. Therefore, they have given a good Erasmus scholarship to all students, delivering the money before their departure.

As we continue, that tells you how little money we will have for the entire course that is left of Erasmus.

Current situation

For people who were not Fellows of the ministry in the previous year 2011/2012, the government gives us an amount of 100 euros per month, but only for a total of eight months. So we stayed for the full course, i. e. ten months. We have to look for life, because the government believes Erasmus students could spend less time.

People who were awarded grants by the ministry last year, only receive aid of 85 euros per month, also for a total stay of eight months.

On that account, aid granted by the Government has been reduced by 40% over the previous year 2011/2012.

If we calculate separately, for non-beneficiaries it has been reduced by 33, 33%, but for fellows reduction is 59, 25%.

Now a problem occurs. The Board of Andalusia made a table with payments based on the standard of living of each country of destination, also based on the amount of money they thought would be given by the government. If you look at the table from the Board you shall see if we will give less money to non-beneficiaries or give more to fellows.

Here's the problem; if we look at the total received by each person per month of stay, considering a total of ten months stay, not all recipients will receive more money than the fellows, except for one group.

This does not make much sense, so we do not know if the Board amended its quantities. And if they do, they will give less money to non-beneficiaries or they will give more to fellows.

Anyway, the final situation is as follows:

• Receive 100 euros for eight months if we are not fellows of the Government, 85 if we are fellows.
• Receive 110 euros monthly during the whole stay, by Parliament for all Erasmus students.
• And in my case and that of all Andalusians who are in France, we will receive 272 euros a month if we are not fellows and 152 if we are fellows.

If we do the calculation, taking into account that the government only covers eight months, the Andalusian Parliament 9 months and 10 months, people who are in my situation will have a total of 434, 80 euros per month during the stay.

And I do not know about you, but here in France, with that I can do little.

Because I paid 390 euros for rent and 30 community as fixed costs. That amounts to 420 euros, and are usually about 30 euros of light. For those expenses I need money, and I have nothing left to eat.

So there you have the situation.

Just so you see more clearly you have some explanatory pictures, if you want to see your situation as well.

Clarification on the photo:

• Group A:. Luxembourg, Holland, Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, Iceland, Switzerland and Norway.
• Group B:. Denmark, Germany, Belgium, UK and Finland.
• Group C: France, Spain, Italy, Cyprus and Greece
• Group D:. Slovenia, Czech Republic, Malta, Portugal and Slovakia.
• Group E:. Hungary, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey.

Photo gallery