Scholarship Students Studying Away from Home to Receive an Additional 200 Euros Next Academic Year

Students from modest families who move to another city to pursue secondary education or a university degree will receive an additional 200 euros next academic year to offset the significant rise in accommodation costs. The Government agreed today to increase the residence allowance by this amount, raising the fixed contribution that more than 100,000 students studying away from home receive in their scholarship from the current 2,500 euros to 2,700 euros. The majority of beneficiaries reside in rural areas.

The increase is included in the royal decree that will regulate scholarships for the 2025-2026 academic year, prepared by the Ministries of Education and Science. The document does not alter the income thresholds that grant the right to a scholarship but introduces other improvements for students in higher artistic education, for university students with moderate disabilities, and maintains the 400-euro subsidy for students with special educational needs for another year. Education expects scholarship recipients to reach one million next year, and the study aid budget will reach 2.544 billion euros, 76% more than in 2018.

All those pursuing post-compulsory studies (Baccalaureate, intermediate and higher vocational training, or artistic education), basic vocational training, or university studies and belonging to families in the lowest income levels, threshold 1 and 2, will be entitled to the increased aid for displaced students.

With the modification, scholarships for the next academic year will be as follows. Students in threshold 1, the poorest, will receive a fixed amount of 1,700 euros, the excellence-related amount (between 50 and 125 euros) if they have an average grade of more than 8, and the variable amount (not less than 60 euros), in addition to free tuition. This group includes, for example, households of four members with incomes below 23,286 euros.

Those in threshold 2 (up to 38,242 euros with four members) are not entitled to a fixed amount but do receive the basic aid of 300 euros (350 in basic vocational training), free tuition, and also the excellence-related aid and the variable amount. Students in thresholds 1 and 2 studying in a city different from their own will receive the residence aid of 2,700 euros. Those who do not exceed the threshold 3 limit, 42,836 euros for four members, will have free tuition, basic aid, and excellence-related aid.

This is the second increase in the residence allowance in just two years, as the Government already raised it by 900 euros in the 2023-24 scholarships, when it went from 1,600 euros to 2,500 euros.

The royal decree establishes the complete equalization of higher artistic education students with university students for scholarship purposes, "which will allow them to be entitled to the tuition scholarship," according to the document. This measure will benefit about 7,000 students.

The third significant change included in the decree will allow university or higher artistic education students with a disability between 25% and 65% and entitled to a scholarship, about 1,200, to receive 25% more aid in each of the non-variable amounts (fixed, displacement, and excellence). This reform aims to extend to young people with moderate disabilities a bonus already enjoyed by university students with severe limitations, over 65%, who receive 50% more scholarship. The measure continues an improvement initiated in the current academic year when the Government expanded aid and subsidies for non-university students with special educational needs by lowering the disability requirement from more than 33% to 25%.

The Ministry of Education will also maintain next year, for the third consecutive year, the 400-euro subsidy created in 2023 to help families of all non-university students with specific educational support needs, providing relief to more than 200,000 households against the rising cost of living.

This is a universal subsidy. All students in this situation will receive the 400 euros regardless of their family's income. The subsidy is available to students from the second cycle of Infant to Baccalaureate or vocational training. It is aimed at those with disabilities, severe conduct or language disorders, autism spectrum disorders, or high intellectual abilities.

This universal subsidy is independent of the aid that many of these same students with specific needs may receive, particularly those from modest and large families, to cover part of the costs of transportation, meals, school supplies, residence, or teaching reinforcements.

Finally, the text introduces several updates and modifications to the royal decree that has governed the basic characteristics of the Spanish state scholarship system for study since 2007. One of the most notable is that, when analyzing family income and assets for scholarship eligibility, in the case of students from areas affected by DANA, state subsidies received for this reason will not be considered in the calculation.

Additionally, it incorporates changes required by the law on artistic education; it indicates that possible exclusions regarding the definition of the asset threshold for deposit interest and the balance of capital gains and losses will be set in each annual decree; and it provides a new wording for the requirements in calls for aid with a predetermined number of beneficiaries, allowing prioritization of not only economic or academic criteria but also other circumstances such as belonging to certain disadvantaged groups (victims of gender violence, terrorism victims, foster care situations, etc.).

The royal decree, finally, consolidates the improvements in study aid introduced by the Government in the previous five years. The implementation of the scholarship as a right (achieved with a simple 5), the improvement of 100 euros in the fixed amount, the increase of 50 euros in the base scholarship for Basic Vocational Training, or the increases in the residence amount, among others.