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Expensive?

In the news in Belgium today (eg here or here) : the cost of styding in Belgium has risen x2,5 over the last 20 years. A student at university without a grant who lives at home with his/her parents needs currently about 2000€ for a year (tuition, books, computers, socio-economic activities, transport, ...) . 20 years ago the average student needed 1030€ for the same thing. When they have to rent a room, it runs up to 5000€.

.....

  • 250% over 20 years is more than an average inflation indeed
  • 5000€ is not something you can throw on the table just like that
  • we have one of the highest tax levels in the world (2nd place after France?) and we expect something in return
  • ....
    ....
  • But can we maybe realise how lucky we are to live in a country where qualitative studying is affordable for almost everybody without getting totally ripped off ?
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Jen said…
It's such a slippery slope, because you should be receiving benefits in exchange for the high tax rate. It's like our health care here - we're used to superb health care and we used to have it as a standard benefit, but it's a rarer and rarer benefit and we pay more and more for it and the quality has lessened and lessened. It's interesting that I think in many industrial countries, quality of life is going down and getting harder to maintain than it used to be. I guess we all need to move to Russia or China (or Dubai)! (Joking on that last comment...)
7/1/08 22:18
Wholly Burble said…
There was an editorial cartoon in the opinion section of the paper the other day. A woman was holding the newspaper with the price of gas printed on it--and she was saying, "I don't know how we'll heat the house this winter with the price of gas." Her husband was standing off to her side holding a paper with the title "foreclosure"--and his comment was, "I don't think we'll be bothered with it."

Not good, and evidently SO prevalent, it can be used in an opinion page cartoon knowing many will identify with it.

There is no such thing as "cost of living raises" that ever truly bring people's pay up to the actual rise in the cost of living. Not in this day in age.
12/1/08 03:37
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