Luxembourg Government Increases Student Financial Aid Budget by €10m

In light of rising inflation, the Luxembourg Government has decided to increase the budget for state financial aid for Luxembourgish students in higher education.

At a press conference on Monday 11 April 2022, Luxembourg's Minister of Higher Education and Research, Claude Meisch, presented, in the presence of representatives of the Luxembourgish student association ACEL, the planned adaptations of this state financial aid scheme.

As part of the agreement following recent tripartite meetings, the government had pledged to provide an additional financial envelope of €10 million from the 2022/23 academic year for state financial aid for Luxembourgish students in higher education. This budget will be divided between the basic grant, the mobility grant and the grant based on social criteria.

Note that the social grant may be split into a grant part and a loan part depending on the total annual income of the student's household. This translates into a gradual increase of €50 of the social grant part for an income less than or equal to 4.5 times the gross amount of the minimum wage and up to €115 for an income below the gross amount of the minimum wage.

The details of these adaptations were finalised following several exchanges between Minister Meisch and ACEL.

The half-yearly amounts of the various financial aid components will therefore change as follows:

- The basic grant will increase by €92 from €1,050 (2021/22) to €1,142 (as of August 2022), with €52 of this increase due to the October 2021 and April 2022 wage indexations and the remaining €40 due to the additional budget.

- The mobility grant will increase by €134 from €1,286 to €1,420, with €64 of this increase due to recent wage indexations and €70 owing to the additional budget.

- The social grant will increase by €64-€215 from €288-€1,995 to €352-€2,210; recent wage indexations resulted in an increase of €14-€100, whilst the additional budget contributed to an increase of €50-€115. 

- The family grant will increase by €12 from €262 to €274, owing exclusively to recent wage indexations.