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A student’s life

Orr, D. Social and Economic Conditions of Student Life in Europe. Bertelsmann Verlag: Bielefeld, 2008. ISBN: 978-7639-3662-5. Pages 190. The report Social and Economic Conditions of Student Life in Europe, better known as Eurostudent and officially presented in Berlin on 26 September, is the final deliverable of the project of the same name, which collates comparable data on the socio-economic background and living conditions of students throughout Europe. The current - third - round of the study, covers more than 120 000 students in 23 European countries and includes nearly 250 key indicators, referring to national data from either 2006 or 2007. Similarly to the 2005 edition of Eurostudent (see ACA Newsletter – Education Europe, July 2005), the report shows that the social background of students continues to have an effect on access to higher education. Interestingly, working-class children have the best educational chances in Spain, Finland, and the Netherlands, whereas in Germany, access to higher education from a blue-collar background is limited. Other key findings give insight on funding, living expenses, student spending and employment as well as on internationalisation, to name a few. Eurostudent is a partly EU-funded joint project coordinated by the German Higher Education Information Service (HIS). Eurostudent