At my alma mater (SW Germany) you could live on 450 Euro with the same frugality. OTOH a friend (living in the same dorm!) burned through 2500 Euro a month, that's until his parents started to expect some progress after a few years.

But yes, it was still more than enough. I lived on around 600€ side job + 200€ government stipend before I made my app.

But if you also want to go out, go to restaurants/bars regularly and live in a nice place (not a shared dorm room), 1500-2000€ are way better.

The one I know most students have, is living very frugally, cooking at home, counting every penny to not go into more debt, studying hard to get a head start in life and partying hard on a budget, mostly house parties with booze bought from the supermarket with the occasional club or restaurant outing being a treat.

The other one is the Instagram lifestyle student, travelling to fancy places, practicing expensive sports and hobbies, eating out a lot, going bars and clubbing all the time. That's not your typical student, more like the 1%-er.

Living alone in a non-shared apartment is already a huge luxury for most students unless you come from a well-off family.

Plenty of students get bankrolled by a combination of scholarships, their parents, and loans, and have for decades. There’s nothing wrong with it (or with going the frugal route either).

Edit: To live in dorm 25 years ago in a standard Canadian university (for me) it cost $500/month plus another $500 a month in mandatory food card. That’s equivalent to 650 euros. That’s plus utilities, off campus food and drink, computer, recreation, and transportation, probably another 100-150 euros. My family was hardly rich (school teacher and truck driver) and helped out, I worked part time, and took out loans. Things are more expensive now.

A student having their own apartment (and a car??) is already a luxury 99% of the world will never experience.

They usually had a mix of parental help, loans and part time or coop program work, and scholarships. They weren’t super rich, they were from middle class Canadian families 25 years ago.

I even have a friend going to school today with a rental 5 bedroom house, as single parent raising 2 kids, and having 2 exchange students help out. Between scholarships , loans, and the students from China it covers expenses (well over €2k monthly).

I recognize that is richer than 99% of the world. It’s just my experience.

If you’re coming out of university and making £2k a month that is a bit low.

An MBA graduate makes €90k+ annually in Denmark. This is about the same in other European countries maybe +/- 10k

My point isn’t that some people have it good, it’s that €1-2k a month isn’t exactly glamorous living. The “jet setting” types (I have known a few) are getting an allowance of €3-4k+ monthly.

It isn't glamorous, you're right but I wasn't talking about inequality here, I was saying that very few students in Europe have 2K per month at their disposal.

>If you’re coming out of university and making £2k a month that is a bit low.

AFAIK, 2K Euros per month, after taxes, is your typical starting wage for a full time dev job in a decent company in countries like Germany. To get significantly more than 2K after taxes here as a new grad would put you in the top 10% of devs your age, definitely not the norm in the industry or in Europe.

>An MBA graduate makes €90k+ annually in Denmark.

Do you have a source for this? Because if you do then it would be best for me to give up my dev job in Germany and become an MBA in Denmark. Not /s, but quite serious.

https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Germany/

SAP, not exactly known to be a top player, pays entry level jobs in Germany at around €50k: https://www.levels.fyi/comp.html?track=Software%20Engineer&s...

This grows €5k or so per year of experience with promotions.

Though if you leave Germany you’ll notice that your pay will nearly double. That said, job security in Germany is best in the world, so...

Some recent MBA surveys:

Economist: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2017/10/27/full-tim...

Harvard Business School: https://www.hbs.edu/recruiting/data/Pages/location-details.a...

Cambridge business school:

https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/programmes/mba/careers/employment-...

Germany MBAs tend to be a bit lower than average at €65k though I assume that’s due to labor protections etc. I am not an expert in German labor laws just going on information I have researched in the past. https://www.payscale.com/research/DE/Degree=Master_of_Busine...

Dunno about MBA out of school salaries but in tech in most of europe they are quite a lot lower than €90k. In France it's around 38-45k (pre-tax) depending on location (it can go upwards a bit if you are one of the chosen ones coming out of top universities)

Edit: also a source https://www.usinenouvelle.com/comparatif-des-ecoles-d-ingeni...

University of Cambridge in the UK for example estimates on their webpage £22k tuition for an undergraduate arts degree (double for medicine!) and £11k living expenses annually. With GBP/WUR exchange rate that’s €1550 on living expenses alone, and not “glam”.

https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/international-stud...

INSEAD costs in France is almost double in living costs in Fontainebleau , and 3x in tuition... now admittedly a far more exclusive graduate school, but I have acquaintances in Canada that weren’t rich but really good students that got in and took out loans... the point is more about the living expense estimates :

https://www.insead.edu/master-programmes/mba/financing

For locals i am sure tuition is far lower but if you’re living away from home the living estimates above don’t seem too far off what I’ve seen.. though I’m sure many can scrape by on less.

Granted, I didn’t go to a prestigious grande école, rather just a “pretty good” engineering school. Also business schools are indeed more expensive than technical degrees. Not to mention that Paris region is way more expensive than the rest of the country.

For someone earning half a million, 2k may not seem much, but there goes your reality check. See the other response to your comment - living on €600/month is the more common student experience, maybe even above median.

Average income in the EU is somewhere around 30-40k/year, most parents will never ever have close to 2k/month per child. Even in expensive cities, most will live in shared student accommodation which is cheaper (200-300). This is what allows almost anyone to enjoy the cheap higher education, if it required even 1k spare income you would exclude the majority of the population.

Overall I’m also going by what many EU schools say are average expected living expenses for an international student. Invariably it’s a lot more than €600 a month.

I’m not denying folks can go to school on the cheap, I’m just saying that if you think €1-2k a month is ridiculous jet setting luxury, you’re wrong.

Definitely not true in Norway, it's closer to twice that.

I know Norway has high wages and prices but I can't imagine new-grads there making 4k after taxes.

If you think Levels.FYI caters to a niche, you’re playing yourself.

This idea that €2000 a month to live and study and pay for materials is some sort of "Instagram lifestyle" is ridiculous.