Marie Bugnitz
ROME, Feb. 25 - “A Euro is not a dollar.
A Euro is not a dollar.”
So goes the mantra that Mary Conroy, a junior studying abroad from the University of Notre Dame, repeats to herself each morning before hitting the streets of Rome.
“It has been a real struggle working with the American dollar," Conroy says. "I’m having to re-budget my activities and travel. It affects me on a daily level. I constantly have to stop and calculate prices in terms of dollars. Unfortunately it also really limits my ability to explore Europe”
Conroy joins 524 other
American students studying abroad at John Cabot University for the 2008
spring semester. All of these students must deal with the same fact:
the weak dollar is no euro. The dollar, in decline against the euro for
a few years, is now equivalent to about .675 euros. Such a
difference is taking a toll on American students’ expense accounts.
To put this into perspective:
A standard pizza costs about six euros. Total American dollars spent? $8.88.
Booking a trip?
You find great round-trip plane fare to London for 130 euros. What’s that costing Americans? $192.48 to be exact.
Needless to say, students are struggling to stretch their spending money through the semester. Some students come to Rome having worked a job over the summer and Christmas breaks to save enough money exploring Europe. A smaller group of students receive a stipend each month from their home university to defray living expenses. Conroy’s university, Notre Dame, deposits $400 a month into her account, as part of her annual tuition.
“That seems like a lot, especially to the person who is distributing the money from South Bend, Indiana. But $400 boils down to about 270 euros. And we’re expected to live off of that for a month,” said Conroy.
To Clif Wells, a junior studying abroad from Michigan State University, Conroy is lucky. “We don’t get anything! I’m living off of the money I made working, and hoping my parents will feel generous and spot me some cash every now and then.”
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