Getting good grades will be very worth it in Hungary

After over 11 years, the student normative, from which schools pay grants, will rise.

Students in higher education will be able to “earn” as much as €300+ per month by being diligent and studying hard, as educational grants at the more generous institutes will reach €924-1540 per semester. Good news for the student is that the normative from which these institutes pay the grants will notably rise in 2020, reports Magyar Nemzet.

After more than 11 years, the state financial support for students in higher education was raised in February for the first time since 2007. The €366 normative per student will be raised by 40% altogether after the Parliament‘s decision: it was raised to €396 in February and will reach €513 from 2020.

The student normative is important, because that is what universities and colleges can pay their students different benefits from. Including the money spent on educational and social grants or even the financing of the student municipality.

The number of educational grants available varies not only from institute to institute, but shows considerable differences within an institute’s faculties as well. According to the legislation, 50% of students are eligible to receive a grant, which cannot be less than 5% of the student normative. This is currently €20.

There are a lot of institutions and courses where it pays off really well to get good grades, as the best students can get up to €246-308 monthly. This supports them seriously in making a living.

“It is of much importance to our university to support students, that is why beside the basic support and international scholarships we provide almost 20 other grant/scholarship possibilities for our students.”

The educational grant is worth €308 monthly, which means that the full-time student attending a Bachelors course who has the best academic achievements can receive €1540 in financial support per semester.

That means the one student with the highest grant index in the previous semester, out of all the eligible students for a grant, provided that their grant index is at least 4.5,” told the Rector-Chancellor’s Office of the Eszterházy Károly University with Magyar Nemzet. They added that 4.45% of students receiving a grant got the amount mentioned above.

The eligibility for a grant differs and is hard to calculate most of the time, and the amount one can receive for the same performance can change each semester.

In most institutions not only the grade average counts, but they also calculate grant and credit indices, which means they count how many courses a student took, how many credits those courses were worth, and how many credits they were able to achieve. And besides all this, how the others performed is also important.

In general, it can be said that students need at least 3’s and 4’s to get money for their studies, but there are exceptions of course: at Széchenyi István University and the University of Debrecen, an average of only two was enough, according to the 2018 admissions guide. However, at the University of Pécs, students of economics had to earn at least a 4.65 average in order to receive a grant. Another important rule is that only those students may receive an educational grant who are studying full time and are in a state-funded spot, those who pay themselves are left out of this benefit.

Last year, at the University of Pécs’s Faculty of Health offered the highest amounts, the best could get up to €1078 for a semester. At the Faculty of Health about three to five percent of students get the highest grant, which meant an amount over €123 in the 2017/18 semesters.

The highest amount, over €185, was awarded to only three students in the 2017/18 academic year, they studied at the nurse and patient care (physiotherapist), the health care and prevention (nurse) and the recreation organizing and health development courses, the University let Magyar Nemzet know. They added that, depending on the number of students, the highest amount varies from semester to semester. The students of the Faculty of Health at Semmelweis University were also the luckiest ones in terms of grants.

“Regarding the amount of the grants, it can be said that the highest amount, which was published in the 2018 admissions guide, — almost €1232 per semester — was received by only one student with a weighted average of 4.51. In the 2nd semester of the 2018/19 academic year, the highest grants at the Faculty of Health were €941. The average to achieve this cannot be determined, as it can be achieved with varying academic results in each homogeneous group,” the university added, that the institution has just unified the regulation this semester, so the division of the money is no longer decided by each faculty separately.

Pannon University is also quite generous, but is also divided: at the Faculty of Economics student with an average above 3.5 can get a grant from €170 to €385, at the Faculty of Information Technology the amount was between €123 and 924 last year, and even for an average of 3 there was some money awarded.

Students should take advantage of all the opportunities available to them, as many universities and colleges offer self-funded grants and scholarships and support, which students can multiply their income with, and they can be applied to at the same time.

To the students in need, each institution pays regular social grant, which can be €92-616 per semester, depending on which school the student attends.

Read more about education in Hungary by clicking on our Education tag or by checking out the articles in the Related Posts section below!

Source: https://magyarnemzet.hu/