'Phantom' students use special status to find work

Every year in Belgium, more young people are enrolling at universities – not to study, but only to benefit from the student status in the Belgian labour market.

The main bonuses of being a student are that taxes are low - student workers do not need to pay social security contributions and some positions, particularly in retail, hospitality and seasonal work, are specifically reserved for students.

One interviewee told RTBF: “I’ve already done a bachelor’s degree and then a master’s, which I finished in September. Now I’ve re-enrolled in another master’s programme to keep my status. But I’m not taking part in the courses or exams… it was mainly to keep the advantages of the status.”

She said that the initial cost – the €835 registration fee that she paid online, was quickly repaid: “My salary is much higher. And it’s easier to find a job. I’ve got a job now and I’m sure they wouldn’t have taken me on if I didn’t have student status.”

Since registering, she said that she had not been contacted by the university, even though she does not attend classes.

The interviewee confirmed that having student status allowed greater access to jobs in the hotel, restaurant and catering (horeca) market, where employers cannot always afford to hire anyone other than students. Indeed, students accounted for 48% of total workers in the Belgian hospitality industry last year.

As one Bussels restaurant manager, Valérie Delange, told the RTBF, students are an integral part of her team of four employees and many rotating students, some working since her restaurant was founded eight years ago in Uccle.

“Students are indispensable,” Delange said. “They enable us a lot of flexibility. Also, salary costs of an employee are very difficult to cover these days, while these charges are reduced for students and that is a big tax advantage.”

Students are also essential in the retail sector, said Benoît Davreux, who has managed two Proxy Delhaize supermarkets in Brussels and Rixensart for 23 years. Some 60% of the workload is carried out by employees, the rest by students.

"Students are available when employees are not so free, such as evenings and weekends,” he told RTBF.

“They are young by definition. And, finally, they cost us less,” he added. “But a shop with 100% employees or 100% students would not work. Both profiles are essential.”

Davreux also said the system benefited students: “A student has a reduced national social security obligation so we gain more or less 10%. It’s mainly the student who will gain, as the difference between gross and net pay will be much more interesting. If he receives €15 gross an hour, he’ll take home €14.90 net.”

The RTBF reports that while the managers that it interviewed knew about "phantom" students, they had never hired them, or had only hired them unknowingly.

Belgium’s universities only have figures for students who do not take exams and this does not only mean people who wish to be phantom students, as vice-rector in charge of teaching and student life at ULiège Frédéric Schoenaers explained.

"Non-participation is to do with individual choices," he said. "Some students at the start of their course realise that it’s not the right one.

"Others fall ill very early and stay registered. There may also be people who actually have other activities and will stick with the student status, but to teach, to give lessons in other activities."

In general, universities and colleges say that the phantom student phenomenon is very marginal, while the rectors’ council is analysing the issue across all higher education institutions.

Each student enrolment in Belgium costs €8,000 a year for universities and €5,000 for higher education colleges, according to the federation of higher education establishments in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation – the Académie de Recherche et d’Enseignement Supérieur (ARES).

Students also contribute by paying tuition fees, which are around €1,000 per year.

“It’s a bit of a shame for the community, for the taxpayer in the broadest sense, to have a mass of people who enrol in a course of study for which there is state funding earmarked to support this course of study and who ultimately don't complete it,” added Schoenaers.

The office of the Walloon minister for higher education said that as the phenomenon has not been quantified, it seems complicated to take any measures.

Meanwhile, the Fédération des Etudiants Francophones (FEF), the organisation that supports students in Brussels and Wallonia, adds that the phantom student phenomenon highlights that precariousness affects more and more young people – with the transition between studies and securing a first job sometimes complicated.

FEF president Adam Assaoui said being a phantom student is “not for pleasure or to cheat, it’s because students have no other solution”.