EU Boosts Exchanges
July 16, 2007
Erasmus Mundus, started in 2004, is designed to help European students who want to spend a year at foreign universities outside the European Union and also helps bring foreign students and scholars to the EU.
From 2004 to 2008, the initial program had a budget of 230 million euros ($318 million), and more than 2,300 students have participated in the exchanges. Both the funding and number of grants available will jump in 2009 as the EU has approved a five-year budget of 950 million euros.
Widened scope
EU Education Commissioner Jan Figel said the second phase of the program, which will begin with the new funding boost in 2009, will widen Erasmus Mundus' scope to include more students from India, Iran and China. There will also be more grants for doctoral students and an increase in the amount of financial aid.
Erasmus Mundus will become "the trademark for EU cooperation with third countries in the field of higher education," Figel said.
Taking on the Fulbright brand
Erasmus Mundus is seen as the European answer to the US Fulbright program, which started in 1946. The Fulbright program promotes international study by giving out approximately 6,000 competitive grants to students and scholars each year and has an annual budget of around $180 million.
"I think that Fulbright studies are really a brand name in Europe and the friendships, the cooperation and the way of experience that this has brought about, this is exactly what we would like to create," said EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner.
Ferrero-Waldner said the EU is sensitive to concerns about brain drain that such programs cause in developing countries, where there's always a fear top students will leave for an education abroad and never return. Erasmus Mundus diplomas awarded during the program's second phase would only become valid once a student returns home, Ferrero-Waldner said.
The Erasmus Mundus program evolved from the Erasmus exchange program, which promotes student exchanges within Europe. Approximately 155,000 European students participated in the Erasmus program during the 2005-2006 school year.