Keir Starmer’s back in Brussels with Britain’s credit card—this time to rejoin the EU’s Erasmus student exchange scheme at a projected cost of £8.75 billion. That’s right: nearly nine billion quid to send a select few on a semester of sipping espresso in Milan while millions of British youngsters back home are priced out of education altogether.
💷 Brussels Gets the Bill—Britain Gets the Overdraft
This isn’t just a “return to Europe”—it’s a return to backdoor spending that magically appears when the project is shiny, foreign, and comes with a Eurostar ticket. Meanwhile, back in the real world, British students are working two jobs, skipping meals, or shelving uni dreams altogether because the price tag for a degree is higher than a Zone 1 flatshare in London.
Labour says it’s about opportunity. But opportunity for who? Erasmus is a scheme for the already-plugged-in, well-advised, Russell Group crowd. You think kids in Sunderland, Swansea or Stoke are queuing up to do media studies in Marseille? No. They’re stuck watching the budget implode while the government funds someone else’s gap year with their taxes.
And just wait: when the next economic wobble hits—and it will—they’ll roll out the usual cuts to youth services, apprenticeships, mental health, and support grants. And when people ask why? The reply will be:
“We’re in a bit of a black hole.”
Yeah. Because £8.75 billion just vanished into Erasmus while UK students were stuck choosing between rent and textbooks.
This isn’t investment in the future—it’s abandonment dressed up as global cooperation.
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Challenges
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Why are we throwing billions at EU universities while our own students drown in debt and despair? Is this rejoining Europe or rejecting Britain?
💬 Vent, rant, or roast in the blog comments below. If you’ve had to pick work over uni, or watched your child drop out because they couldn’t afford to continue—we want your voice.
👇 Comment, tag a student, share with someone who’s been shafted by this system.
The most powerful replies will be featured in the next issue of the magazine. 📝🔥
Chameleon Magazine 
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