Prague, Oct 11 (CTK) – University students in the Czech Republic have a very low income compared to their European peers as an average Czech student can afford to buy “only six Big Macs” a day, according to the Eurostudent international study cited in yesterday’s issue of Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD).
The study compares the purchasing power of European students on the basis of the popular Big Mac index, which has been used since the 1980s as this fast food product is the same in all countries.
Only Hungarian students’ purchasing power is lower than Czechs’. On the contrary, university students in Norway, Sweden and Switzerland can afford 2.5 times more Big Macs a day than Czechs,MfD says.
Despite their low income, Czech university students rank among the most hard-working in Europe.
The survey shows that 67 percent of Czech students work, while this share exceeds 60 percent in only eight other European countries,. More young people work during their studies only in Estonia, Ireland and the Netherlands, MfD writes.
A salary makes up 58 percent of the income of Czech students who do not live with their parents, while the European average is 35 percent.
Czech students also receive less money from their parents, especially if they do not live at home, than their European counterparts. Pocket money makes up 33 percent of their income, while the European average is 47 percent.
Parents in the neighbouring Slovakia are more willing to financially support their children studying at universities and colleges. Slovak students get 56 percent of their income from their parents. On the contrary, pocket money from Polish parents makes up only 30 percent of students’ income.
However, Czechs have another serious disadvantage compared to other European students, which is almost not existing state support for university students, MfD writes.
Loans and grants make up only 1 percent of Czech university students’ income, which is the lowest share in Europe. The Czech state does not support student’s loans and it is not even considering their introduction, the paper says.
“There is just an indirect support through tax reliefs for parents,” Daniel Munich, from the CERGE-EI at Charles University, told MfD.
This is also one of the reasons, though not the most important one, why many students extend their university studies beyond their regular length or do not complete them at all, he added.
One in two students of Bc programmes and three in four students of technical fields do not finish their studies in the Czech Republic, MfD says.
The Eurostudent survey has confirmed Munich’s opinion. It shows that if students work more than 15 hours a week, they cannot manage full-time study. Czech students, who do not live at home, spend 16 hours a week at work on average.
Yet, they are optimists as only 4 percent of them complain about having it difficult to maintain themselves during their studies, while almost 60 percent do not consider their finances a problem, MfD writes.
($1=24.209 crowns)
