Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among Eastern European students enrolled in master’s programmes in Denmark, this article sheds light on the dominant geographical imaginaries, which have informed their decision to pursue an education abroad. Difficulties in aligning their life with a desired life trajectory in their home countries make the students long for a new beginning in a foreign land. They imagine Scandinavia as a place of abundant opportunities – a normal place, which will allow them to unite their inner desires with their social realities. These imaginaries reflect an overarching narrative of ‘the West’ as a place that offers a superior mode of existence.

Previous studies suggest that student mobility is not open to everyone but has to be learned and socialized. If so, how then can we account for mobility among students whose parents are less experienced travellers, where border crossing was not an integral part of their upbringing? Drawing on an ethnographic study among Central and Eastern European master’s students at a Danish university, this chapter explores some of the factors that make students from post-communist countries pursue an education in Denmark. The students’ explanations indicate how their parents have ‘handed down’ a positive narrative relating to travel to their post-communist-era children, where crossing borders has intrinsic value. The analysis further suggests that the students’ educational mobility and choice of study destination should be understood in relation to a dominant metanarrative of ‘the West’—a progressive place offering a superior mode of existence—that has been cultivated throughout their upbringing. Thus, on a broader level, the chapter highlights how the wanderlust of these students is rooted in a complex process that starts long before they themselves begin to think about studying abroad.

Since 2009, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of students from EU’s newer member states, who enrol as full-degree students at Danish universities. Attracted by the fee-free access to highly ranked universities, these students often arrive with dreams of creating better lives for themselves, and of accumulating Western educational capital. Students from the EU’s newer member states are usually reliant on jobs to sustain themselves in Denmark. However, many find it hard to get regular jobs, and some of them become trapped in semi-legal employment or in low-status, low-paid jobs. Drawing on empirical material collected during a long-term ethnographic fieldwork among full-degree students attending English-medium MA-programmes at a Danish university, this article explores how students from the EU’s newer member states make sense of their lives as students and workers in Denmark, and how they respond to experiences of unequal access to student jobs.

Siden begyndelsen af dette årtusinde har universiteter i Danmark undergået en massiv internationaliseringsproces. Internationalisering kan forstås som led i transformationen af velfærdssamfund til konkurrencesamfund. Den har nemlig blandt andet til formål at forbedre Danmarks position i den internationale konkurrence om viden, talent og innovation samt at tiltrække talentfulde udenlandske forskere og studerende til Danmark. Internationaliseringen medfører en række forandringer, som er interessante i en diskussion om velfærdsstat og konkurrencestat. En af dem handler om studieøkonomi. Videregående uddannelser i Danmark har nemlig traditionelt været gratis, og siden 1970erne har staten ydet studiestøtte for at udjævne betydningen af økonomiske forskelle i adgang til uddannelse. Men i 2006 indførtes studieafgift for studerende, der kommer fra lande uden for EU/EØS, og i 2013 ændredes SU-reglerne, så EU-studerende under visse betingelser kan være SU-berettigede. Ændringerne har brudt med velfærdsstatens forsøg på at udjævne betydningen af økonomiske forskelle. I artiklen undersøger vi, hvordan studerende på internationale uddannelser skaber mening i de økonomisk forskellige måder at være studerende på. På baggrund af to års feltarbejde på et dansk universitet giver vi en række eksempler på, hvordan studerende differentierer mellem forskellige grupperinger af studerende med henvisning til økonomi, og hvordan de konstruerer symbolske hierarkier mellem sig selv og andre.