I think we have two very distinct student lives in mind:
The one I know most students have, is living very frugally, cooking at home, counting every penny to not go into more debt, studying hard to get a head start in life and partying hard on a budget, mostly house parties with booze bought from the supermarket with the occasional club or restaurant outing being a treat.
The other one is the Instagram lifestyle student, travelling to fancy places, practicing expensive sports and hobbies, eating out a lot, going bars and clubbing all the time. That's not your typical student, more like the 1%-er.
Living alone in a non-shared apartment is already a huge luxury for most students unless you come from a well-off family.
1000-2000 a month is hardly “jet setting” and has nothing to do with instagram. We are talking the difference between living in a shared accommodation and maybe having a small apartment, maybe having a used car, etc.
Plenty of students get bankrolled by a combination of scholarships, their parents, and loans, and have for decades. There’s nothing wrong with it (or with going the frugal route either).
Edit:
To live in dorm 25 years ago in a standard Canadian university (for me) it cost $500/month plus another $500 a month in mandatory food card. That’s equivalent to 650 euros. That’s plus utilities, off campus food and drink, computer, recreation, and transportation, probably another 100-150 euros. My family was hardly rich (school teacher and truck driver) and helped out, I worked part time, and took out loans. Things are more expensive now.
As the other comment mentioned, 2k/month is a starter salary in the nordics. It is near instagram-lifestyle money in Portugal, Spain and most of the eastern EU for a young single person.
A student having their own apartment (and a car??) is already a luxury 99% of the world will never experience.
Most students I knew didn’t have their own apartment and car but a few did if they had small children, had social reasons to live alone, or were married (yes some people get pregnant in high school).
They usually had a mix of parental help, loans and part time or coop program work, and scholarships. They weren’t super rich, they were from middle class Canadian families 25 years ago.
I even have a friend going to school today with a rental 5 bedroom house, as single parent raising 2 kids, and having 2 exchange students help out. Between scholarships , loans, and the students from China it covers expenses (well over €2k monthly).
I recognize that is richer than 99% of the world. It’s just my experience.
If you’re coming out of university and making £2k a month that is a bit low.
An MBA graduate makes €90k+ annually in Denmark. This is about the same in other European countries maybe +/- 10k
My point isn’t that some people have it good, it’s that €1-2k a month isn’t exactly glamorous living. The “jet setting” types (I have known a few) are getting an allowance of €3-4k+ monthly.
>My point isn’t that some people have it good, it’s that €1-2k a month isn’t exactly glamorous living.
It isn't glamorous, you're right but I wasn't talking about inequality here, I was saying that very few students in Europe have 2K per month at their disposal.
>If you’re coming out of university and making £2k a month that is a bit low.
AFAIK, 2K Euros per month, after taxes, is your typical starting wage for a full time dev job in a decent company in countries like Germany. To get significantly more than 2K after taxes here as a new grad would put you in the top 10% of devs your age, definitely not the norm in the industry or in Europe.
>An MBA graduate makes €90k+ annually in Denmark.
Do you have a source for this? Because if you do then it would be best for me to give up my dev job in Germany and become an MBA in Denmark. Not /s, but quite serious.
Germany MBAs tend to be a bit lower than average at €65k though I assume that’s due to labor protections etc. I am not an expert in German labor laws just going on information I have researched in the past.
https://www.payscale.com/research/DE/Degree=Master_of_Busine...
Where I studied (france) a 2000€/month would leave me with about 1400€ after discouting housing, 3 meals a day and tuition fees. It's a ginormous amount of money for a student.
Dunno about MBA out of school salaries but in tech in most of europe they are quite a lot lower than €90k. In France it's around 38-45k (pre-tax) depending on location (it can go upwards a bit if you are one of the chosen ones coming out of top universities)
Tuition in France is relatively low if you’re native, (which is one awesome feature of the French state)... if you’re an international student it’s a lot more, and other countries also are a lot more.
University of Cambridge in the UK for example estimates on their webpage £22k tuition for an undergraduate arts degree (double for medicine!) and £11k living expenses annually. With GBP/WUR exchange rate that’s €1550 on living expenses alone, and not “glam”.
INSEAD costs in France is almost double in living costs in Fontainebleau , and 3x in tuition... now admittedly a far more exclusive graduate school, but I have acquaintances in Canada that weren’t rich but really good students that got in and took out loans... the point is more about the living expense estimates :
For locals i am sure tuition is far lower but if you’re living away from home the living estimates above don’t seem too far off what I’ve seen.. though I’m sure many can scrape by on less.
I wasn’t French when I studied here. The tuition was still pretty low, roughly 800€ year including insurance afaik my school did not distinguish between local and foreign students. More known schools like ISEN or EPITA took roughly 5k€/year afaik but I may be wrong.
Granted, I didn’t go to a prestigious grande école, rather just a “pretty good” engineering school. Also business schools are indeed more expensive than technical degrees. Not to mention that Paris region is way more expensive than the rest of the country.
You can’t compare Canada to most of Europe. Cars are ridiculously cheap in the US and CA, but a luxury in EU capitals. Parking alone would cost hundreds/month, and expecting that mythical student’s apartment to have a garage is a funny joke!
For someone earning half a million, 2k may not seem much, but there goes your reality check. See the other response to your comment - living on €600/month is the more common student experience, maybe even above median.
Average income in the EU is somewhere around 30-40k/year, most parents will never ever have close to 2k/month per child. Even in expensive cities, most will live in shared student accommodation which is cheaper (200-300). This is what allows almost anyone to enjoy the cheap higher education, if it required even 1k spare income you would exclude the majority of the population.
I had mentioned that a car is needed in some cases, but not all. If I have small kids as a student I’m probably going to need a car in Canada, US, or some EU countries (not all).
Overall I’m also going by what many EU schools say are average expected living expenses for an international student. Invariably it’s a lot more than €600 a month.
I’m not denying folks can go to school on the cheap, I’m just saying that if you think €1-2k a month is ridiculous jet setting luxury, you’re wrong.
That’s total compensation including stocks and bonuses, and still way beyond the median dev salary. Levels.FYI caters to a niche audience. Sort it by lowest to get a much more realistic picture.
> The other one is the Instagram lifestyle student, travelling to fancy places, practicing expensive sports and hobbies, eating out a lot, going bars and clubbing all the time.
This idea that €2000 a month to live and study and pay for materials is some sort of "Instagram lifestyle" is ridiculous.
Not sure about these extremes. I was a working class student in the UK and most of my fellow students still managed to party pretty hard, just efficiently (Sainsbury's Basics Vodka + Blue Bolt, M-Cat, drink deals at the SU and other horrific student nights).
But if you also want to go out, go to restaurants/bars regularly and live in a nice place (not a shared dorm room), 1500-2000€ are way better.