Sweden: Tuition fees approved for non-European citizens

[Hank W.]

So maybe your little nowheremaki institutions are just trying to keep up with the big boys and girls in Helsinki.

The polytechnics get money from the government to keep the Nowheremäki shelter jobs. There is no discussion of Finland "needing" some Nowheremäki polytechnic in the first place - as that would be against the government regional policy. Not quite mad as in Norway - but they have the oil money to keep the fjords occupied.

what it is that really irks folks about international (or non-EU) students and your system of free education.

My salary before and after taxes is what irks me the most

[sinikala]

The new tuition system would be implemented on January 1st, 2010, at the latest.
Here is the link - http://www.thelocal.se/12594/20080623/

Is Finland next?

In the short term, no. I think there will be a knock on effect with Finland getting more applications from those who would earlier have gone to Sweden.

Free education is one of the primary reasons that students choose Sweden. A study carried out last year by Sweden’s National Agency for Higher Education and the Swedish Institute found that many may choose not to pursue their studies in Sweden if fees are introduced.

Around 13,000 foreign students study at Swedish universities and colleges as “free-movers” who choose to come to Sweden on their own initiative rather than as a part of an organized exchange program.

Most of them are Asian men who are pursuing technical degrees.

According to the study, 86 percent of students would recommend studying in Sweden to others. If the education cost money, however, only 37 percent would recommend Sweden.

There will be a dramatic drop in numbers of non-EU students going to Sweden, and you can bet that many of those who would have studied in Sweden will turn their attention to Finland.

Several of the non-EU foreign students I talked to about this in TKK told that they looked at the UK, Germany and Switzerland as their first choices, but came to Finland because there were no tuition fees. They considered it to be a "no-brainer".

[sammy]

There will be a dramatic drop in numbers of non-EU students going to Sweden

That's quite possible - IIRC since Denmark introduced tuition fees to non-EU students a few years ago, the number of foreign degree students in Denmark has declined (6854 -> 4300 students, according to the SYL document below)

In any case, if anyone's interested in this issue it might also be worth reading the commentary by the National Union of University Students in Finland (SYL)... some interesting points there... for example the following

It is likely that the funds collected through tuition fees are not enough even to cover the costs of
additional duties caused by introducing [the] new system.

and, interestingly enough (my italics)

In Sweden, a working group considering the issue of tuition fees reached the conclusion that when
comparing the additional costs required by establishing a term fee system to the income it
produces, the result is zero.

You can read the SYL paper here:

http://www.helsinki.fi/hyy/en/claims_and_facts.pdf

See also http://www.syl.fi/maksutonkoulutus/english

(The Finnish students are naturally also worried that tuition fees would, in the name of equality, sooner or later be extended to EU students as well - which is a fair point, whichever way you look at it)

[mrshourula]

American's tend to like to pay lots of money for things so they can talk about it

So I guess now when Ravvy comes to Finland for his road trip he will save his gasoline receipts to keep the discussions interesting

Yes! But it is a short discusion because most of us just don't know the difference between a gallon and a litre

[sinikala]

In Sweden, a working group considering the issue of tuition fees reached the conclusion that when
comparing the additional costs required by establishing a term fee system to the income it
produces, the result is zero.

That sounds strange. It would have to be some very heavy admin that would eat up several million Euros. Interesting to note that HY already charges for non-graduate studies http://www.helsinki.fi/admissions/nongr ... tudies.htm
so there is no reason not to extend that to undergraduate or post-graduate studies.

http://www.helsinki.fi/hyy/en/claims_and_facts.pdf

Still, there are no calculations about what is actually possible to cover with the collected tuition
fees. There are only approximately 2,000 foreign students in Finland coming from outside the
European Union or European Economic Area (according to KOTA database). Even in an ideal
situation, only about 30% of the foreign students in Finland who come from outside the EU and
EEA study in English master’s programmes are willing to pay the fees, which means there are
10–20 such students per a master’s programme. It is not possible to cover even the costs of the
master’s programmes with the planned level of compensations, and it is unrealistic to think that
Finnish universities could demand fees of the same scale as American or English top
universities.

That data is already > 3 years old. Today for HY alone "The number of foreign students has grown to close to 1500 degree students and close to 1000 exchange students pro year." (see http://www.helsinki.fi/international/)
And we've seen from application figures, that the vast majority of foreign applicants to Finnish universities are from outside of the EU. That fits with the EU trend that 38% of foreign students in the EU are from other EU countries http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/ ... faq_en.pdf

If the above mentioned assumptions were to be realized, tuition fees collected from the students from
outside the EU or EEA would therefore be approximately 0.5% of all the income of the university.

IMO that is an oversimplification, a good deal of the income of the University (from the government) covers fixed costs - maintenance of buildings, research laboratories and equipment, journal subscriptions for libraries, infrastructure for permanent staff and researchers etc etc. Those costs are there irrespective of student numbers.

More useful would be to know what proportion of the costs of providing the education to the students would be covered by tuition fees (keeping student records, examinations, marking, tutoring etc). I suspect that it would be significantly higher than 0,5%.

I read somewhere that the aim is to raise the percentage of foreign students to 15% (was it in HY? I don't remember). IMO it would be entirely consistent to raise x% of the direct costs of educating the x% of non-EU students.

See also http://www.syl.fi/maksutonkoulutus/english

In the next few years Finland will see a decline in the number of young people. This, coupled with the increase in the share of elderly people over the same period, means skilled foreign labour is required to redress the balance. Many students who come to Finland to study would like to live and work in Finland after graduation. Graduating with a Finnish degree and learning the language and culture is the best way to integrate into Finnish society. Non-free education will definately reduce the attractiveness of Finland in the eyes of foreign students.

IMO that is quite right, what it boils down to is that Finland is offering something for nothing in the hope that some of the students will stay and contribute taxes, when there is little evidence to support the idea that they stay.

That the main attraction Finland offers is free education is not a good thing. There need to be other incentives to attract skilled qualified workers here. Eg. Denmark has lower taxes for skilled migrant workers for at least a few years. There is perhaps better return on investment of paying directly those qualified workers you need, than in throwing money at untrained foreign students and hoping that some of them stay.

it is unrealistic to think that Finnish universities could demand fees of the same scale as American or English top
universities.

Why not? I have my own opinions (quality, duration, prestige being a few issues), but would be interested to know what others think.

The Finnish students are naturally also worried that tuition fees would, in the name of equality, sooner or later be extended to EU students as well - which is a fair point, whichever way you look at it

That is a red herring, in the UK EU and home students pay a fixed £3200 p.a. (= ca. €12k over a 3 year degree). Non-EU fees are dependent on the course, but vary from 3 to 6 times that figure. So even if there would be fees in Finland like the UK model, they could be much lower than the fees for non-EU students.

Education in Finland is not free, in the long term it is damned expensive, even for the locals, which is why Finland produces relatively few graduates. Students take out loans to cover living costs here, and study times are amongst the longest in Europe. A UK student may have to pay €12k in fees for a 3 year degree, but they can then go out and work, and earn for several years whilst their Finnish counterpart has several more years with little or no income. By the end of their studies, who is financially better off?

[sammy]

In Sweden, a working group considering the issue of tuition fees reached the conclusion that when
comparing the additional costs required by establishing a term fee system to the income it
produces, the result is zero.

That sounds strange. It would have to be some very heavy admin that would eat up several million Euros. Interesting to note that HY already charges for non-graduate studies http://www.helsinki.fi/admissions/nongr ... tudies.htm
so there is no reason not to extend that to undergraduate or post-graduate studies.

(Just for the record, the bits I quoted were not written by myself but they were taken from the SYL paper)

I think the calculations get a bit complicated, once you take into account the fear presented in the SYL paper that if tuition fees were collected, that might simultaneously mean cuts in the money the universites now receive from the gov't - and, as hinted at in another section of the SYL paper, there's also the issue of how the scholarship programme would be financed. These same doubts may have been present in the Swedish paper... but yes, it does sound a bit strange - it's difficult to say what exactly has gone to the Swedish calculations.

http://www.helsinki.fi/hyy/en/claims_and_facts.pdf

Still, there are no calculations about what is actually possible to cover with the collected tuition
fees. There are only approximately 2,000 foreign students in Finland coming from outside the
European Union or European Economic Area (according to KOTA database). Even in an ideal
situation, only about 30% of the foreign students in Finland who come from outside the EU and
EEA study in English master’s programmes are willing to pay the fees, which means there are
10–20 such students per a master’s programme. It is not possible to cover even the costs of the
master’s programmes with the planned level of compensations, and it is unrealistic to think that
Finnish universities could demand fees of the same scale as American or English top
universities.

That data is already > 3 years old. Today for HY alone "The number of foreign students has grown to close to 1500 degree students and close to 1000 exchange students pro year." (see http://www.helsinki.fi/international/)
And we've seen from application figures, that the vast majority of foreign applicants to Finnish universities are from outside of the EU. That fits with the EU trend that 38% of foreign students in the EU are from other EU countries http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/ ... faq_en.pdf

I could try and dig up some more recent stats, I'm not sure whether the amount of admitted non-EU students has gone up that drastically. But I'll check. Be as it may, the number of exchange student is a bit irrelevant - they would not be charged any fees anyway. Unless perhaps those who arranged their exchange 'outside' the existing programmes.

If the above mentioned assumptions were to be realized, tuition fees collected from the students from
outside the EU or EEA would therefore be approximately 0.5% of all the income of the university.

IMO that is an oversimplification, a good deal of the income of the University (from the government) covers fixed costs - maintenance of buildings, research laboratories and equipment, journal subscriptions for libraries, infrastructure for permanent staff and researchers etc etc. Those costs are there irrespective of student numbers.

Yes, but what if the income from the gov't would become smaller - the gov't might say, okay you're getting income now from the students so we're not giving you as much as before? Just a thought.

it is unrealistic to think that Finnish universities could demand fees of the same scale as American or English top
universities.

Why not? I have my own opinions (quality, duration, prestige being a few issues), but would be interested to know what others think.

I think it might just refer to the fact that there must be something seriously wrong with the Finnish university system, since at least in the humanities/social sciences sector it produces unskilled and uncivilised gits with only moderate income - like myself.

[sammy]

http://www.helsinki.fi/hyy/en/claims_and_facts.pdf

Still, there are no calculations about what is actually possible to cover with the collected tuition
fees. There are only approximately 2,000 foreign students in Finland coming from outside the
European Union or European Economic Area (according to KOTA database). Even in an ideal
situation, only about 30% of the foreign students in Finland who come from outside the EU and
EEA study in English master’s programmes are willing to pay the fees, which means there are
10–20 such students per a master’s programme. It is not possible to cover even the costs of the
master’s programmes with the planned level of compensations, and it is unrealistic to think that
Finnish universities could demand fees of the same scale as American or English top
universities.

That data is already > 3 years old. Today for HY alone "The number of foreign students has grown to close to 1500 degree students and close to 1000 exchange students pro year." (see http://www.helsinki.fi/international/)
And we've seen from application figures, that the vast majority of foreign applicants to Finnish universities are from outside of the EU. That fits with the EU trend that 38% of foreign students in the EU are from other EU countries http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/ ... faq_en.pdf

Okay, figures... I made a few checks at the KOTA database - the most recent figures I could get my hands on are from 2006... (I only checked universities for this, not polytechnics)

So, as regards the year 2006

Overall amount of foreign degree students in Finnish universities - 5434
Of these, those coming from Europe - 2983
So, potential fee-payers in all universities = 2451*

As for the 2006 figures Univ. of Helsinki (KOTA information)

Overall amount of foreign degree students - 1233 (sic - the uni pages state "nearly 1500", maybe based on the 2007 stats)
Of these, those coming from European countries - 826
-> potential fee-payers at the Univ of Helsinki = 407*

*) An additional question, which I can not answer but which I suspect could skew the figures even lower, is whether these statistics include the relatively large number of those non-EU citizens (Russian citizens in particular) who are considered "permanent residents" and are entitled to KELA support ie who have not "come" to Finland to study... an interesting issue is whether, if tuition fees were introduced, permanent residence would override citizenship in deciding who should pay (similarly as it now is the case with KELA study grant)

Hmm. Dunno.

[everestbear]

this discussion is getting more brainly challenged than i had previously thought. for me status quo system with slight change in regard to filtering overflow of students from some countries can be a good idea. I never realized the fact that polytechnics are so low ranked in finland!!??? and that international business degrees that they offer

[Hank W.]

Business degrees are for those who are too stupid in maths they cannot get to engineering or too lazy to learn to get into philosophy. Engineering and philosophy degrees are for those who are too stupid to study medicine or law.

[easily-lost]

Business degrees are for those who are too stupid in maths they cannot get to engineering or too lazy to learn to get into philosophy. Engineering and philosophy degrees are for those who are too stupid to study medicine or law.

I wonder whether all those who learned engineering in Finland would hold the same attitude towards other majors. Does every teacher say that to their students as the beginning of class everyday? Because I heard this SO many times, and those "nerds" talk exactly the same as the above, no slight change at all.

I understand engineering is the "highlight" of Finland these days, but it doesn't mean a bunch of engineers could run the whole country perfectly. Without internationalism, there won't even be computers in Finland (Not made in Finland initially, were they?); and people live here can only have rye bread or potatoes, or maybe nothing at all as the soil is acid. Btw, do you guys know how plants grow from the earth at all?

Of course I'm being exaggerated, because you guys' attitude about what you are doing is over-exaggerated too. The whole world out there is more colorful and vivid than what you see, which are just 0 and 1! You don't even have to be romantic, just try to learn something ELSE besides being a code-monkey. You can't get a real life in the virtual world!

[Hank W.]

Because I heard this SO many times, and those "nerds" talk exactly the same as the above, no slight change at all.

Oh, we know

I understand engineering is the "highlight" of Finland these days, but it doesn't mean a bunch of engineers could run the whole country perfectly.

Don't tell them that

Btw, do you guys know how plants grow from the earth at all?

Do you know what was the Nobel prize for, one of the few a Finn got?

You can't get a real life in the virtual world!

No, but a 2nd one surely

[tuhandsome]

Stop it already everyone !

This is a topic about tuition fee... not reputation or sthing like that

After all, Fin is unknown for education We had better choose US or Aus ! The only advantage of Fin is that they still provide free tuition, and people who do not want to pay much to study abroad will surely think of Fin as a good destination Just wait till Fin collects tuition fee and see the difference maybe the no. of intl degree students will drop by 80% ! The rest 20% is Finnish and some guys from Sweden

[Hank W.]

This is a topic about tuition fee... not reputation or sthing like that
After all, Fin is unknown for education

Well that *is* the reputation - also lack of it

[easily-lost]

Do you know what was the Nobel prize for, one of the few a Finn got?

Definitely not an engineer guy winning in Biology!

Stop it already everyone !
This is a topic about tuition fee... not reputation or sthing like that

Since when are we supposed to focus on the main topic on this forum?!

And yes, in all those well-known universities in US or Australia, how many locals can you see there? Here in Finland, Finns are the majority in university, because they set very few limited places for foreign students. So, even if they do charge tuition fees, there won't be much difference in foreign student numbers.

[Hank W.]

Do you know what was the Nobel prize for, one of the few a Finn got?

Definitely not an engineer guy winning in Biology!

Chemistry, which is the inventor of that stinky cowfeed.