The loan scheme proposed in the new European Union budget sadly reflects uncritical thinking in the EU, and does little more than support banks at the expense of students, writes Lundagårds higher education policy columnist Elisabeth Gehrke.
Currently the long-term EU budget is being negotiated on all levels of European politics. Even though the debate is centered on the economy you should know that students are also directly affected by the budget. Our current situation calls for a genuine sense of duty in our policy makers in Europe but they are not answering the call. The European Students’ Union, ESU, where I am involved is fighting for changes in the budget but the fight is made unnecessarily difficult when policy makers are more concerned with appearances and winning than the greater good.
In the budget, there is a proposal to add a loan scheme for students who want to go abroad on a master level. You can read more about why I and ESU think this is a bad suggestion here but in short it’s because it will be a risk to the existing grants, encourage brain drain and indirectly promote implementation of tuition fees where there were none.
But more than just being genuinely bad policy the proposed loan scheme for mobility reflects a dangerous attitude on behalf of European policy makers. One of the main reasons the proposal is being supported is because “it looks good”. Our representatives are prepared to keep bad policy in the budget because they are more concerned that it looks like they are doing good things than actually doing them. It’s a vanity project with potentially devastating consequences. In fact the loan scheme does little more than support banks at the expense of students.
Another justification of the scheme is “if we cut it we open up for other cuts”. The Commission and Parliament are more out to “win” the fight over the budget than to actually make sure that the contents of it are sound. And they wonder why countries are experiencing growing distrust towards the European institutions…
It is not an unreasonable request that our politicians make informed and responsible decisions. When it comes to the loan scheme they have not even bothered looking into the long term consequences. This is utterly unacceptable and this kind of behavior will put our future at risk. There is no way we can afford irresponsible policy makers in these times of crisis. I am lucky enough to often find reasons to believe in our European future; sadly the behavior of the Commission and Parliament is not one of those reasons.
