Student grants – it’s a jungle out there

Students are missing out of millions of kroner worth of grants largely because of the complex process

Living the life of a student often consists of subsiding on pasta with ketchup sauce and two kroner Harboe beer from Netto while living in a small, dank and vastly overpriced room.

Yet, there are over 1,000 grants available for students nationwide, but a confusing application process has deterred many students from applying.

The student aid website Studerende Online has a collection of approximately 1,000 grants listed, with the combined total exceeding 200 million kroner. But despite the potential aid, only about 6,000 people visit the site every month, which perplexes the site's editor, Thomas Elmegård.

“There are huge sums of money in grants, and that surprises me considering the recession we’re experiencing at the moment,” Elmegård told MetroXpress newspaper. “Students are missing out on money for projects, study abroad trips, and people who are short of funds in general.”

One example of the dilemma can be seen at the Knud Højgaard Foundation. Despite offering between 10,000 and 30,000 grants every year to students who have a maintained a mark of 7, which is an average grade on the Danish seven-level grade scale, the Knud Højgaard Foundation only received about 900 applications.

One of the main reasons for the lack of applications is that the entire grant process lacks organisation and exposure, according to Torben Holm, who is the head of the student organisation Danske Studerendes Fælleskab.

“It is silly that so many grants are being wasted because they could help contribute to the slender SU [state-allocated student allowance] support,” Holm told MetroXpress. “I think that the issue is that the grant application process is a jungle. You either have to be from north Jutland, have a dentist background or something else, and it’s not very transparent.”

If you are looking through the jungle that is grant application, then this link at Studerende Online may be a great help. To see the English version, click the translate button in the top right hand corner and choose English and then refresh the page.

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