Unemployment Benefits

[Markmywords]

Ok thanks for that

[Kössi K]

BTW, does part-time students get the student card and enjoy those 50% discounts in VR trains?

If so, I am getting some ideas to enroll to the university as part-time student, at least for the student card. This VR prices are killing me and 50% discount is very much welcome relief.

Nope. You only get the student discount if you are PRIMARILY a student (= on the student benefit from Kela, which requires full study load and automatically denies you unemployment eligibility for Labour Market Subsidy). Kela vs TE-toimisto have a "thing" where you are either a student OR a jobseeker but not both, you are only one or the other despite what you're actually doing with your day.

"Part time" students are either supporting themselves with part time work, or getting no Kela support at all, or are "unemployed people which TE-office are supporting through their part time studies" (which is a thing where they'll agree to let you study on the unemployment benefit because they believe it's necessary for you in order to get work). The latter is a case-by-case basis and most people with a decent employment history seem to get denied.

Nope also for the above, in parts. True, exactly as tummansininen said, you have to be primarily a student, and if you are enrolled as "present" at any Uni, you are automatically denied the labour market subsidy. So, either you are a student or unemployed, you generally can't be both. (As tummansininen mentioned, some iffy options exist for finishing your studies or doing e.g. Master's thesis after finishing Bachelor's, if have been unemployed for a year after graduation, and you may have a chance of doing your higher thesis studies while being on unemployment benefit, but I haven't looked into that in more detail. That's just something that TE stated.)

But false, being primarily a student does not equal being on the student benefit from Kela: student benefit from Kela has nothing to do with the issuing of the student card. The student card, at least in universities, is issued by the Student Union of the uni in question. You get the student card from the student union by applying for it, after you've paid the yearly union fee (92 - 94e this year in Helsinki and Turku). And with that card, you get that 50 % off VR tickets and other benefits. You can have that card in full use every year, if you just pay the yearly fee, no matter if you study one day or 365 days any given year. Also, not dependent on whether you get or don't get Kela student benefit (which in turn does depend on your workload or rather that you get enough study credit points each year).
For example, http://www.tyy.fi/en/students/student-card

However, I'd also have to point out, not knowing how much roger-roger knows about our higher education system and enrollment there, and just to stress this to those reading this board, who don't know how the higher ed system works:
You do not simply 'enroll' at a university here but you have to apply during official application dates, and usually also take an entrance exam to get in. Unless of course, roger-roger, for example, already has an entrance granted previously. But in general, read through the study related forum here, as well as universities' sites. Getting in may be harder than you'd imagine, it's not just enrolling whenever. Even those that don't have entrance exams and a small percentage of students applied actually taken in each year, still have specific dates (usually early spring) when you even can apply.
This from a Finn who has done the above and studied at a university here.