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Financial support for students in higher education in the Czech Republic: a system overhaul is required
Münich, Daniel ; Kořínek, Otakar
Financial support for students in higher education in the Czech Republic has not received the attention it deserves over the past decade. Not only has the general public lost little sleep over this matter, but academics and politicians have largely ignored it, too. Information, statistics, and analysis of the targeting and impacts of current student financial support are at best piecemeal and at worst non-existent, which is symptomatic of the little public and policy interest in this matter. As a result, over the past few years there have been only a few minor tweaks made to the existing outdated and underfunded system. International comparisons show that the total amount of financial support for students in the Czech Republic is very low. A large share of that support is also provided across-the-board, meaning that support for the most socio-economically needy students and prospective students is very low. The average total monthly support provided both directly and indirectly to students under 26 years of age is between some 5,300 CZK [euro 200] for those from the poorest backgrounds and 2,700 CZK [euro 110] for others. Support for students aged 26 and above is only around 500 CZK [euro 20] per month, regardless of their economic background. In European comparison, the support for socio-economically weak students is extremely low. Only a very small proportion of students are eligible for publicly funded social scholarships, which provide only minimal financial support in any case. No data is currently collected on the demographic or social status of scholarship recipients. Similarly, there is no data measuring the extent to which children from poorer backgrounds are deterred from university study by the low level of available support. The amount of funding made available through social scholarships and the breadth of the pool of students eligible for them is not regularly increased in response to inflation or students' rising living costs, but is revised in connection with ad hoc raises made to the minimum wage and living wages.
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