 This is Denmark, ranked as the second happiest country in the world, and it's easy to see why. It's got beautiful scenery, it's a country rich in culture. Everything from music to movies, to sports, and in Denmark they speak Danish. This is what it sounds like. If none of that made any sense to you, don't worry because Denmark is one of the best English speaking countries in the world. I mean, just listen to these people. And when I see and talk to newcomers and talented individuals from all around the world who come to Denmark for their career, I see people who are surprised by the quality of life they find here. And so it's no wonder why thousands of international students want to come to Denmark and study in English. But then this happened. My study program is being cancelled now that I feel finally settled in. Why would this happy, developed English-speaking country suddenly cut off the majority of its English programs at university level? And why is this a massive threat to English education in the entire EU? The answer is in this paper. Agreement on the reduction of English language higher education. But before we can understand this paper we need to understand I don't speak Danish, so State educational support is an excellent translation for SU and we're just going to keep calling it SU because I don't know how to say SU was created all the way back in 1996 as a way to encourage Danish citizens to get a PhD and it was so successful that they then expanded it out into masters and bachelor's programs. So what is SU? Why is it such a big deal? Education in Denmark is free at all levels but of course you still have to deal with living expenses and a lot of Danish students were just choosing to get a job rather than get a degree. SU was created to encourage them to pursue more higher education. It works by giving students a monthly payment. Denmark pays its students to go to college and it totally worked. The EU's database euro stat does not go back more than nine years, so I can't personally validate this data. But if Timothy Hicks is to be believed he'd crunch the numbers back then and SU had an immediate and massive impact. University enrollment for young people shoots up from 30% to about 60% in just a few years. Everything seems great. Danes are going to college, they're getting paid to study. What's the problem? There was a big one. Actually a very big problem. See SU was only available to Danish citizens or migrant workers who had been living in the country for a few years with employment and that is not okay. That like violates every principle of the European Union. If you're a citizen of a European Union country you're also considered an EU national and what that means is that you are entitled to these same rights as a natural born citizen of any of the other EU countries when you are there. In other words if you're a German and you go to Denmark you should get the same exact rights as Danish citizens. This is like the main philosophy behind the EU. It's kind of like the whole concept. So in 2013 just after the history channel drops the show Vikings the European Union parliament releases this bombshell. The commission staff working document impact assessment accompanying the document directive of the European parliament and the council on measures facilitating the exercise of rights conferred on workers in the context of freedom of movement of workers. This over 100 page document specifically called out Denmark for limiting access to SU by imposing a residence requirement on other EU nationals and then the EU passed a law saying you can't do that. With the new EU rules every EU national is eligible to go to Denmark and get SU right away. So I want you to put yourself in the shoes of a young European who wants to study in English like maybe you're Princess of the North Spain and you're looking for an English language program somewhere in the EU. Well there's obviously you know English in the UK but the UK has voted to leave the European Union. Yeah so you keep looking and you check out maybe the Netherlands. It's the number one destination now for English language degrees in Europe. Except it costs 5000 euros and you're a financially responsible princess and you don't want to spend that much money every year on your education. So you keep looking and there's Germany and Germany is free. You don't have to pay almost anything to study there. Seems like a good deal but they don't give you money to study and that brings you to Denmark. Here's your best option. Classes are free and they pay you. So if you were a Spanish princess what would you choose? Europeans started to flock to Denmark to get SU and the numbers don't lie. You can see a major increase in the number of international students from other EU countries and a massive increase in the number of people that qualify for SU after the EU's 2013 decision. But why is this such a big deal? I mean they're just giving a few hundred Kroner a month to these people. Like what's it really matter? Why is this a problem for the entire EU? This wouldn't have been a problem if most of those people stayed in Denmark and then paid taxes and put money back into the system to make up for what they took but that's not the case. In fact, only about a third of Denmark graduates from other countries stayed in Denmark and got a job. The majority went back to their home country and that is what brings us back to this. The agreement on the reduction of English language education in Denmark. The SU costs for migrant workers are significantly above the level of the EU's. The estimated costs of 576 million Kroner in 2020. The agreement agreed that the SU expenditure on migrant workers reduced by reducing access to English education. Professional bachelor programs with a total admission of approximately 650 training places that can still be offered in English. Denmark decided to slash English programs down to the bare minimum. SU was just going and they needed a way to reduce that but they obviously couldn't exclude other EU nationals. So the only solution was to get rid of English language education. Obviously people aren't going to come to Denmark if they're going to have to study in Danish. This is bad for everyone. This affects the rest of Europe and it affects you as an international student. It affects you as a European citizen. It affects even you if you're living in Denmark. There are not a ton of English language universities in the EU. Countries like France don't even offer undergraduate programs in English in their public universities. Spain has very limited offerings mostly from private universities. Countries like Austria and Belgium have very few English language programs which is why we haven't even covered them yet. Your best options have been the UK which is no longer part of the EU, the Netherlands, Germany and then Denmark. Those students that would have gone to Denmark are now going to have to look somewhere else and since the Netherlands is already packed and barely has room for more international students that means they're probably going to end up in Germany. What happens when all of these people who wanted to go to Denmark start going to Germany? And then Germany has another budget crisis where they're spending too much money because they give education for free. What if they start cutting their English programs? The EU is trending now towards an old school European situation where every country is just going to teach in its language and that's going to kill the flow of students from one country to another. It's going to destroy English language education across the continent and that worries me. The ban for English degrees isn't going to decrease. If anything it's going to increase because every study shows that when you master the English language you make more money. Countries that speak English better have higher rates of economic growth because they can engage in a global market. Learning English is good for nations and people. So why are we killing programs in English for the university level? And what's most frustrating about this whole thing is that there's an extremely easy solution. Right now Denmark has to pay sue for all of those international students that come from other EU countries. Why not just make the other EU countries pay sue for their citizens? Instead of Denmark paying for a German to get sue, Germany should have to pay for that German to get sue. And if that happened it would encourage governments to promote their own kinds of sue programs. It would also encourage countries like France to make more programs in English. Instead of punishing Denmark for creating a benefit for its citizens, the EU should be punishing the other countries for not innovating enough. If Europe doesn't change the way it handles this situation it could mean the death of English language university education in the EU. And none of us want that. If you're still here then I just want to say thank you so much for watching this to the end. It means a lot. I hope you found this interesting. I actually this is the second time I recorded this video because I was first just going to do a quick update on like hey how to study in Denmark video is basically obsolete now and like here's the few English programs that are left but I realized it was more important to talk about this issue and some of these things that are happening in Europe. I think it's important for us to understand these things so that we can maybe pressure things in the right direction because the European parliament needs to understand that its current policy will destroy English language education. It is not okay. And the only way they can change it is if people speak up and explain that and the only way people are going to do that is if they know what the problem is in the first place. So that's what this video is for. I appreciate you watching it. If you're new here thank you so much for checking this out and I hope you come back to visit some more stuff. If this is not your first time here again thank you for coming back like it means a lot to me. I hope to see you next week.