Almost 270,000 students obtained EU-financed grants for study exchange, mobility, or traineeship in 2012-2013, setting a new record based on the available data. The biggest number of grantees, proportional to their graduate populations, was Luxembourg, Finland, Lichtenstein, Latvia, and Spain, while the most popular destination countries were Germany, France, and Spain. Most of the students received scholarships for studying at another university whereas about 20 percent of all recipients pursued an internship in a private firm. EU Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, Androulla Vassiliou, has explained that the Erasmus program helped to build “a sense of belonging to the European family” and to boost the opportunities, employability, and career prospects of the participants of the Erasmus program.
Further statistics indicate that scholarships went up by 9 percent on average over the past one year, climbing from 250 EUR to 272 EUR, which is the grant that recipients get on top of national, regional, or other institutional scholarships. The new Erasmus+ program, which started at the end of last year, will provide scholarships to 4 million people including two million students at higher education institutions and universities. The program should cover also about 300,000 personnel over 2014 to 2020. Erasmus+ will not only focus on mobility and exchange between European countries but will also provide funding to students from non-European countries worldwide.
The extended Erasmus is coming at the time when about 6 million young people are jobless throughout the EU with levels higher than 50 percent in Greece and Spain. At the same time, there are believed to be more than two million vacant positions while employers keep reporting difficulties in finding employees with the skills and aptitudes they need. Moreover, experts have also stressed that a skills gap persists on the labour market and the EU Commission hopes that Erasmus+ will address this gap by making it possible for more and more young people to get experience abroad.
