How much do you pay for your education?

We asked people passing by our tent at the European Youth Event how much they spend on their education annually. Many of them started thinking of their tuition fees only, and consequently said their education was free. However, we reminded them of the so called hidden costs of education which can include a variety of costs from books, school materials, transportation, meals, uniforms to school and study trips and more. At that point, many of the people started recalculating and ended up writing down numbers which were not at all close to free.

We did not specify whether it had to be the costs they needed to cover during their secondary or tertiary education. As well as that, the participants came from different countries and as we  know, educational systems and costs differ a lot from a country to another, and therefore the number varied from 300€ up to the alarming 10 000€ annually.

Some numbers and outcomes:

• 124 people took part in our money box initiative.
• All together, what they invest in their education a year is as high as 587 570€.
• That means that on average, one person had to spend 4738€ annually to be able to get their education.

So is our education really free or do we just hide all the costs and make the education seem free because there are no tuition fees? Should we finally start talking about hidden costs and their impact on the accessibility of education?