Why is Starmer giving the EU £570M per year?

 So one of the main headlines today is that Starmer is giving the EU £570M per year for the UK to re-join the EU Student Erasmus programme.

Given the UK doesnt have this money and will need to borrow it a 5.4% interest per year, it does beg the  question when will the UK see a return on this "investment".

Let's start with the obvious.  

Students generally are young - the primary people that will go on these schemes are in the age group 21-30.  

Secondly looking at the current net migration data, the primary group fleeing the UK to find a better life abroad are young adults in the 16 to 34 age group.

So joining these 2 facts together it does look like for the majority of students, this will be a one way trip.  The government is subsidising a brain drain.

Also it's worth considering the demographics of this group.  It is highly likely that this group comes from the wealthiest strata of UK households.  Given Labour are communists, it's hard to rationalise that they are funding rich kids to have a nice time in a foreign country.

So let's return to the numbers.  

In the final year of the UK's participation in Erasmus, back in 2020, there were 9,900 UK students went abroad and 16,100 came to the UK.  The UK paid somewhere in the region of £200-£300 Million into Erasmus in 2020 and received  £126 Million (EU 146M) back.

So basically we were subsiding foreign students to come to the UK and learn English. Now some probably stayed and are net contributors to the economy. But looking at it selfishly we sent 9,900 students abroad for say 1 year at a cost of £200 Million (using the lower estimate since the data is not available). That's an "investment" of £20,200 in each student.

So why are we paying £570 Million now? That's a huge increase since 2020. It does smell dodgy. 

 Let's contrast this with the Turing scheme which the UK set-up as a replacement. The costs for this are in the region of £78 - 105 Million per year. In a typical year it has cost £100 Million and supported 43,000 UK students.

So why is Starmer giving £570 Million for a scheme which supports circa 10,000 students when we already have a scheme which costs only £100 million and supports 43,000 students?

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