Europe: Student exchanges hit by cutbacks

UNIVERSITIES face cuts of up to 90 per cent in federal funding for overseas student exchanges next year.


Since 1987, the Erasmus program has helped students to do some of their degree work abroad. But now, the scholarship program has become a the victim of its own success - 99 percent of its budget for 2012 was already used up by October because of the program's growing popularity among students.

According to the European Commission, the current Erasmus budget has a staggering shortfall of some 90 million euros ($116 million) which will need to be filled by a supplementary budget, otherwise students will already be hit by cuts in the current academic year of 2012/2013. What this effectively means is that a student who receives a place in the Erasmus program for 2013 cannot be sure whether his exchange year will actually take place or not.