What is student income and who invokes it (even a rector…)
To solve the high rents, which is mobilizing university students from all over the country, the Italian startup Yezers is working on a proposal that provides for a student income system. Here's who's behind it and how it might work
The rental costs for non-resident students are unsustainable. Girls and boys camping with tents in front of Italian universities have been saying it for days. Among the proposals they put forward is that of a student income that would provide them with the financial means necessary to meet their needs.
The idea has found support, among others, from the rector of the Bocconi University in Milan, Francesco Billari, who hopes for more family-off-site housing agreements and Northern European model subsidies.
But where does the student income proposal come from and what does it consist of?
“SERVE STUDENT INCOME”
It all started a week ago at the Milan Polytechnic but yesterday at the University of Bologna, considered the oldest in the world, the student organization that pitched tents and called a public assembly also hung a banner on the rectorate that reads: "High rents explode from government to government: student income is needed". Banners with the same request were also hoisted under the Sapienza University of Rome.
A boy interviewed by La Stampa explained that it would be used "to pay for the house and other expenses" and that it should be "borne by companies that profit from public research".
WHY YOU NEED A STUDENT INCOME
Meanwhile, an explanation of what is meant by "student income" has appeared on the Yezers website. The proposal , we read, "has the objective of providing students with the financial means necessary to meet their needs" without burdening families.
The theme is particularly felt because, the authors observe, Italy is one of the OECD countries with the lowest number of graduates , who, if instead they were helped and valued, would enrich the "Italian system, restarting the economy from below and protecting state coffers".
WHO IT'S FOR
According to the text under construction, to access the student income you must be university students of Italian nationality studying in Italy or students of Italian nationality engaged in post-graduate specialization courses in Italy.
HOW MUCH MONEY WE TALK ABOUT AND HOW THE LOAN WORKS
Yezers says that the proposal he is working on foresees the possible introduction of a student loan – with a maximum amount of 700 euros per month – guaranteed by the Italian state through Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (Cdp).
The loan should then be repaid by the student "in a timeframe, at his choice, of a maximum of 30 years which can be modified or shortened according to the applicant's preferences".
“The public guarantee – explains Yezers – will allow the application of subsidized interest rates, which will encourage the use of this instrument, filling the scarcity of supply that the credit market reserves for student loans in Italy. Specifically, the student income provides for the application of a symbolic rate of 0.3% to be added to the inflation rate. For example, today this rate would be 0.8%. To avoid negative consequences deriving from periods of particular macroeconomic instability, the identification of a maximum ceiling (currently estimated at around 7%) is also assumed”.
WHAT IS YEZERS
Yezers defines itself as an Italian non-profit association, made up of over 600 activists organized into Research Teams, active on the proposals, and Support Teams, which keep the Organization standing.
Founded in 2017, it also claims to be the first startup to enter politics with the aim of making "concrete proposals to make Italy a country for everyone, and in particular for Generations Y and Z [i.e. those born between 1985 and then], which we intend to represent before the Institutions”.
To the question “are you from the right or from the left?” he replies that he finds it difficult "to fit in and to wear a standard tunic" because he maintains that he is "neither one nor the other" and, therefore, non-partisan.
WHO IS BEHIND
Behind Yezers is Vittorio Dini. Born in 1991 on the Island of Elba, he graduated in Government and Business Management in Florence. After an internship at the Milan office of the US strategic consulting multinational Boston Consulting Group, he joined the National Youth Council of the Prime Minister, of which he is still a member.
In 2017 he started working in Eni, first as a member of the Strategy & Negotiation team in the field of alternative energies in Algeria, Egypt and Tunisia, and since 2020 he is Head of Commercial & Negotiation for Eni New Energy US.
In 2018, Dini explained that over time the organization would need to finance itself "without entering a condition of influence from third parties" and thought of solutions such as crowdfunding.
THE PROPOSALS OF THE RECTOR OF BOCCONI
To solve high rents, Billari, rector of Bocconi University, suggests "investing in the construction of residences with innovative partnerships between the public and private sectors, also by reconverting underused commercial and office buildings".
And while waiting for these to come true, he proposes to "turn a problem into an opportunity": "Young people who, in exchange for their time and their company, are hosted by lonely elderly people or families with disabled people, for example. University students involved as tutors in schools or reception centers who are given a bed in exchange".
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/cosa-e-il-reddito-studentesco/ on Thu, 11 May 2023 12:55:47 +0000.