Anyone who have ever taken a look at the current job unemployment statistics for young adults (18-26) in Sweden the last couple of 5 years and today, knows how hard it is to be a student in summertime. I don't even bother applying for the currently two listed available jobs that I can imagine maybe 2,000 people (?) will try to get their hands on. CSN, the study council board, seems to haven't updated their policy with student loans during summers. I do not understand why they aren't giving out money between June and August when most of the chunk is loaned money anyway.
In the longrun they make more money that way and it would higher the quality of life for such a large number of students in this country who can't find any jobs and won't be able to afford a vacation during their 3.5 years or longer of university education. Something's terribly wrong. Encouragement to get educated is pretty high in Sweden, but should be much higher than it already is. There is not enough flexibility and possibility to independence through job salaries today, and will continue to be this way for an uncertain future ahead of us.
I followed a debate about young adult unemployment in this country, on TV, just a couple of days ago and found out there are somewhere between 140,000 and 170,000 unemployed young adults. The numbers differ depending on if you count in students, long-time or short-time unemployed, non-students, etc. The politicians have job offer hirings for 20,000 long-term unemployment people in the governmental sector. That will make a difference, but the rest of the unemployed in the same age group will still be left out and with nothing but uncertainty for now.
My education plan is firsthandedly about getting a secured monthly income, secondhandedly about reaching my goals in life with getting a nice, appreciated, fun and wellpaid job in the future. My own personal hope is that the job market will have recovered until about 2010-2012 some time, or else I will have to move somewhere else, possibly to United Kingdom where jobs flourish (the pay being less of course, but a job is still a job!).