Erasmus+ Explained

The European Region Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students - Erasmus - is the most successful student mobility programme in history by every measurable axis. Since launching in 1987 it has funded more than 12 million participants. The current iteration is Erasmus+, a rebrand that runs from 2014 onward and covers higher education, vocational training, school education, adult learning, youth and sport. The 2021-2027 budget is around 26 billion euros.

This article covers what Erasmus+ actually is, who is eligible, how the application works, how much money participants receive, what changed for UK students after Brexit, and the honest take on whether it is worth the bureaucracy.

The author of this site spent his Erasmus year in Madrid as part of his Spanish and International Relations degree. His honest take, with a decade of distance: yes, with reservations.

What Erasmus+ actually funds

The headline activity is the part most people associate with the brand: higher education student mobility, where students at a participating university spend a semester or a full academic year studying at a partner university in another participating country, with their host university tuition fees covered and a grant towards living costs.

The wider Erasmus+ programme covers six other strands that get less press but are real:

Vocational education and training mobility (VET) for apprentices and learners in technical and vocational courses.
Adult education mobility for non-credit learners and staff in adult education.
Schools mobility for teacher exchange and school partnerships.
Youth mobility including the European Solidarity Corps (volunteering placements across Europe).
Sport funding for grassroots initiatives.
Strategic partnerships between institutions for curriculum and methodology development.

The student exchange strand is the one this article focuses on, because it is the one most likely to be relevant for adult language learners.

Who can participate

The student exchange strand is open to students enrolled at a higher education institution in a participating country. Participating countries are the 27 EU member states plus a set of associated countries: Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, North Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey are full programme countries; the UK and Switzerland have partial or third-country status post-Brexit and post-2014 respectively (more on the UK position below).

The participation requirement is institutional, not personal. Your university has to have an Erasmus+ agreement in place with the host university. You do not apply to Erasmus+ as an individual; you apply to your home university's exchange office to participate in an exchange that is itself enabled by an institutional Erasmus+ agreement.

Most undergraduate degrees that include a year-abroad component (modern languages, international relations, European studies, some business degrees, some law degrees) treat the Erasmus year as a structural part of the curriculum. Other degrees treat it as optional. The eligibility rules differ across universities, so the answer for any specific student is "ask your university's international or exchange office."

How the application actually works

For students at a participating university, the practical sequence is:

First year: research where you might want to go. Most universities publish their list of partner universities by department.
End of first year or start of second year: submit a preference application to your university's exchange office. You typically rank three or four partner universities in order.
Allocation: the university allocates places based on grades, language level, and the number of places available at each partner. This is competitive at popular destinations (Barcelona, Berlin, Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam).
Pre-departure: complete the Learning Agreement (a list of courses you will take at the host university, signed off by both universities to confirm they will count toward your home degree), arrange accommodation, sort visa or registration if needed.
Departure: usually for either one semester or two semesters. Some programmes allow a full academic year, others only a semester.
On arrival: register with the host university, sort accommodation, do the local administrative steps (residence registration, healthcare card, bank account), start classes.
During: study under the host university's rules. Your home university typically credits the host courses toward your degree based on the Learning Agreement.
Return: submit a brief end-of-period report. Receive the final tranche of your grant. Your home university transcripts the host courses onto your record.

The bureaucracy is real. It is not impossibly bad, but it is meaningful enough that students underestimating it tend to spend their first two weeks of the host semester running paperwork rather than studying. Plan for that.

How much money you actually get

The Erasmus+ grant is intended to be a contribution to living costs, not full funding. The amounts vary by host country grouped into three cost bands:

High cost band (Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden): around €600-€670 per month.
Medium cost band (Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Germany, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain): around €540-€600 per month.
Lower cost band (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, North Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey): around €490-€540 per month.

Figures above are 2024-2025 indicative rates; the precise amount for any given year is set by each national agency and can change annually. Additional top-ups are available for students from disadvantaged backgrounds and for participants with disabilities.

In addition to the grant, the host university does not charge tuition fees to incoming Erasmus students. You continue to pay your home university's tuition fees as normal (which matters for UK students under the £9,250-a-year domestic fee structure or any post-Brexit equivalent).

The honest math: the grant covers maybe 50-70% of monthly rent in a moderate-cost European city. The rest of living costs (food, transport, social life, books) comes out of your own savings, student loan, or part-time work. For most students this is materially cheaper than a normal year at the home university because the host country's cost of living is lower than the UK or US baseline, even after factoring in the grant gap.

The UK Brexit position

UK students lost full access to Erasmus+ when the UK left the European Union on 31 January 2020. After the post-Brexit transition arrangements expired at the end of 2020, the UK government announced that the UK would not continue to participate in Erasmus+ and would instead launch its own programme.

That programme is the Turing Scheme, which started in the 2021-2022 academic year. The Turing Scheme is the UK government's replacement for the outbound side of Erasmus+ for UK students: it funds UK students to study or do work placements abroad, in any country in the world rather than only the EU.

The key practical differences:

	Erasmus+	Turing Scheme
Scope	EU + associated countries	Worldwide
Tuition at host	Waived by the institutional agreement	Not necessarily waived; depends on the host university's policy
Outbound funding	Yes	Yes
Inbound funding	Yes (Erasmus+ funds students coming to the UK from EU countries)	No - Turing only funds UK students going abroad, not foreign students coming to the UK
Predictability	Multi-year programme cycles, planned in advance	Annual application cycles, less long-term certainty

The loss of the inbound funding side is the strategic problem for UK higher education. EU students who used to come to the UK on Erasmus+ now have to pay UK tuition fees and arrange visas, both of which are material barriers. The result is fewer EU students at UK universities, which means fewer EU friendships, fewer language-exchange partners, and less of the international undergraduate culture that made British universities attractive to many students in the first place.

The Republic of Ireland has stepped into the gap somewhat by continuing in Erasmus+. Some UK universities have negotiated bilateral exchange agreements outside both schemes; these vary in generosity.

For UK students considering a year abroad in 2026 onward, the practical reality is:

Turing Scheme funds UK students going abroad, with grants similar to Erasmus+ amounts. Apply through your home university.
A year in Ireland gets you back into Erasmus+ via an Irish university, with all the EU-side benefits, if you are willing to take that route.
Other bilateral agreements vary; ask your university's international office.

Whether it is worth the bureaucracy

The author's honest take, looking back a decade after his own Erasmus year in Madrid:

Yes for language learners, with the understanding that the language gain is the obvious benefit and not the most important one. The language gain is real: you arrive at A2-B1 and leave at B2-C1 in nine months, faster than any other route. But the more durable benefit is the shift in what you think is possible to do with your life. A year living alone in a foreign country at 20 establishes that you can do it, which changes the calculation for every subsequent decision (move for a job, move for a partner, move for a project, live somewhere where you do not yet speak the language). That shift compounds over a working life in ways that are hard to articulate in advance and difficult to put on a CV.

No if you are looking for a year of academic rigour comparable to what you would do at home. Erasmus credit transfer arrangements are usually generous; the academic standards at most host universities are reasonable but rarely intense; and students typically optimise for the experience rather than for top marks. Going on Erasmus expecting to come back with significantly stronger academic preparation than your peers who stayed home is the wrong frame.

Yes if you are unsure, because the chance to do it does not come back. Most people who skip a year-abroad opportunity at 20 do not arrange one later in life; the practical and financial logistics get harder, not easier. The bureaucracy is annoying. The year is not.

For UK students post-Brexit, the Turing Scheme is a meaningful consolation prize on the outbound side; the inbound loss is the structural cost of Brexit on UK higher education that this article cannot fix.