The University of New York in Prague, for the first time in its history, has received a financial grant to support Erasmus students while they live and study in a different EU country. While studying abroad might seem financially impossible for many students, a grant of this kind can make the dream a reality.
Full-time degree students can apply for Erasmus after they complete their first year of studies, and there are many different institutions in Europe to choose from. Under the regular Exchange Program (which was not financially supported), UNYP had long-standing partnerships with schools in Spain, France, the Netherlands and Germany. With the start of Erasmus, these existing partnerships were brought under the auspices of Erasmus, allowing students to take advantage of the financial support that the European Union provides. Under Erasmus, UNYP has forged new partnerships with other countries in Europe, such as Portugal and Great Britain, and is currently finalizing a partnership with a school in Denmark.
Erasmus partnerships take the form of bilateral agreements between schools, so we can only send students to schools where we already have signed bilateral partnerships.
Some of our students are very creative and proactive – if a school that they want to study at is not on our list, they contact the school themselves and make it happen. This is how we got the University of Malaga to sign an agreement with us for one semester – with enough ambition and work, anything is possible! However, the hardest part of the search for partners is the requirement that classes must be taught in English – of course, many European schools teach in their national language.
The financial support that is given to students under Erasmus grows every year. For example, take Spain, the most popular country for exchange students. A student that decides to go to Spain will receive EUR 450 a month – the same for a student going to France, Germany or the Netherlands. Great Britain is in a different group, and students going there will get EUR 510 a month. There is a strong emphasis on signing up new partnerships with other countries within this group, such as Ireland, Sweden and Norway.
In general, the signed partnerships are set to run to 2020. This is because after 2021, the Erasmus program is set to see a dramatic increase in funding from the European Union. For comparison, Erasmus received EUR 14.7 billion for the period from 2014 to 2020, but is expected to receive EUR 30 billion for 2021-2027. This means that over 8 million more students will have the opportunity to study abroad with financial support.
The first UNYP Erasmus students are currently enjoying their semester abroad, and we are all excited for them.