Spain breaks the record for students from outside the European Union

There have never been so many students arriving from outside the European Union in Spanish universities and training centers. A change in the regulations that regulate the entry of foreigners into the country allows these students from mid-2022 to combine their training with jobs of up to 30 hours per week. An opportunity that has not taken long to be taken advantage of. According to data from the Ministry of Inclusion and Migration, Spain issued 122,460 study permits (undergraduate, postgraduate, FP and other training) or professional internships last year, a third more than the 81,346 registered in 2021, before the rule change. The growth of Russian students is the most striking, although the presence of the population from Latin America is the one that leads, followed by enrollment from the United States, China and Morocco, countries that contribute more than 5,000 each.

The universities agree in pointing out this regulatory change as the key for many to be able to afford their stay in Spain. Before the reform, an enrollee depended on their savings or their family's economic capacity to support themselves, but by opening the door for students to cover their expenses with a few hours of work a week, class barriers are diluted , promoting diversity in higher education in the country.

The latest data offered by the Migration Observatorylinked to the Ministry of Inclusion, reflect that the majority of those who arrive are women (56%) and the average age of these students is 26 years. Regarding geographical distribution, more than half of the foreign students process their authorization to stay in the Community of Madrid (25.94%), Catalonia (24.45%) and the Valencian Community (15%). At the opposite extreme are La Rioja (0.29%), Asturias (0.57%) and Cantabria (1.05%).

In the case of Latin Americans, the increase in youth unemployment and insecurity, on the rise in the region since the pandemic, has pushed many young people to continue training in Europe in the hope of finding a job later, according to Vladimir Paspuel, president of the Rumiñahui Association, dedicated to supporting migrants. Although for now Paspuel observes that the jobs that these young people find while they are studying usually have “low salaries and harsh conditions.”

Fiorella Espinosa, a 30-year-old Peruvian, experienced this reality firsthand. She arrived in 2022 after enrolling in a master's degree in hydraulic engineering at the Polytechnic University of Valencia and tried to combine her academic training with some qualified employment in her field; but her only offers came from restaurants. She ended up accepting a job as a cook that allowed her to save for her future projects in her country, although she admits that she has had to “juggle” to combine work and training.

Espinosa witnesses how the composition of higher education classrooms has changed. In his class of 40 students, 26 come from Latin America, an especially high percentage. In a more specific calculation, Migrations counted that a total of 75,857 non-EU students were living in Spain at the end of 2023, of which about half belong to a Spanish-speaking country. The Spanish university system has 1.6 million enrolled students.

Another factor that encourages arrivals is the low cost of some Spanish programs. For example, Arantxa Suárez, 28, arrived from Colombia in 2022 to study a master's degree in business administration at the University of Cádiz. She chose the Andalusian city because of the cost of tuition: 1,000 euros on average, far from the 5,000 that these types of programs cost on the campuses of the Caribbean country. This reality, added to other factors, generates a trend that is explained in figures. At the University of Seville, for example, the increase in Latin American students was 160%: from 331 in the year before the regulatory change, to 861 enrolled in the current one, an unprecedented jump.

In addition to the simultaneity between classes and work, the change in the regulations of the Immigration Law It also aims to facilitate the incorporation of students into the labor market once they have completed their studies. Previously, a three-year stay was necessary to obtain a work permit. However, employment data on young people is not so encouraging: Spain closed 2023 with the highest unemployment rate in the European Union, with 28.36% of employees between 18 and 24 years old.

The lawyer specialized in international mobility Félix España explains that the law still presents problems. He details that when a university student graduates and wants to start working, he needs a person to make a “pre-contract” and this is a process that can take several months before the candidate finally joins the company, which is why many Employers, specifically, are not interested in waiting that long. Furthermore, the complexity of the procedures or the limitation of the 30 working hours per week offered by graduate students usually put companies back when it comes to hiring them permanently.

Suárez herself is aware of the difficulty that awaits once the training is completed. While studying, the young Colombian chained jobs in a restaurant and as a pet sitter before joining a human resources company. Upon graduation, she was not hired full-time and the only way to remain in Spain was to start from scratch using her studies — she went to pursue another master's degree in Zaragoza — as a resource to extend her stay and continue her search. of employment.

His case is similar to that of José Estévez, a 25-year-old Dominican, who arrived in Spain at the end of October 2022 to pursue a master's degree in big data in a training center in Madrid. His biggest challenge was finding an internship where he could work the allowed 30 hours a week. “Most prefer analysts who work 40 hours,” she laments. He knocked on the doors of up to 100 companies and when his stay permit was going to end, an insurance company accepted him as an intern in the data area; although to formalize his internship contract he had to enroll in another master's degree in order to extend his legal status for another year. Between procedures, it has been almost two years since he returned to his native country, where in addition to its climate, his car and his food, he mainly misses having “more control” over his life and his destiny. .

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