Finnish Education Forum

Tuition fees not dampening foreign students' enthusiasm for Finland

Via Yle Uutiset: Tuition fees not dampening foreign students' enthusiasm for Finland.

More prospective foreign students applied for university in Finland in 2018 than during the last year higher education in the country was free. Since 2016, Finnish universities have been able to charge tuition fees from students arriving from outside the EU or European Economic Area. 

In 2017, Finland was home to some 20,000 foreign students, a drop of around 1,000 over the previous year.  

“The dip was, however, not as drastic as we had anticipated,” Birgitta Vuorinen, director of the Education Ministry’s Division for Higher Education Policy, told Finnish News Agency STT.  

The number of people aspiring to earn a degree in Finland is growing, according to the Finnish Immigration Service Migri and the Department of Education. The universities of Helsinki and Eastern Finland said they have both seen more applicants for their fee-based programmes than they did during the last year they offered free tuition.  

Paying for top programmes 

Finnish universities have found that foreign students are willing to pay for the programmes of their dreams. At the University of Eastern Finland, foreign students make up 40 percent of Master’s graduates in the field of natural sciences. 

Susanna Niinistö-Sivuranta, development director at the University of Helsinki, said instituting tuition fees has led to the school drawing a more globally diverse pool of applicants.  

“We are now seeing more applicants from the United States,” she added. 

Vuorinen said she believed Finland’s quality of education and Finnish society in general are attractive for foreign students. 

“Finnish education is of high quality, tuition fees are modest and scholarships are available.” 

Annual tuition fees in Finland range from 8,000-15,000 euros at the University of Eastern Finland to 13,000-18,000 euros at Helsinki University. 

“In reality, grants cover a part of these costs. Only a small number of students pay full tuition fees,” Harri Siiskonen, academic rector of the University of Eastern Finland, said. “But we’re heading in a direction of rising fees and fewer scholarships.”  

Worklife roadblock 

Some 5,000 foreign graduates leave Finnish universities every year. 

“This is quite large pool of specialists looking to join the labour force. One reason they come here is because they want to work in Finland,” Vuorinen explained. 

Helsinki University said it’s well aware that many of its graduating foreigners encounter obstacles when trying to land a job in Finland. 

“Things like a lack of networks, little experience interviewing for jobs in Finland as well as limited language skills are problematic,” Niinistö-Sivuranta explained. 

At the ministry, Vuorinen said she agreed that foreign students face a slow and challenging journey when it comes to integrating into the Finnish job market. To that end, she pointed out that government agencies have launched Talent Boost, a cross-administrative programme designed to attract and retain international talent in Finland.  

Siiskonen said universities should also do more to help their foreign graduates. 

"We have to work with municipalities, public and private employers to help our Master’s students make the right connections,” he said.

International students in Finland - obstacles and top tips

Via Yle Uutiset's "All Points North" podcast: All Points North #58: International students in Finland - obstacles and top tips. Excerpt:

A new academic year has begun and many international students have arrived in Finland and getting a feel for what lies ahead. While they are just settling in, as many as 1,000 are still waiting for a decision on residence permit applications to begin their studies. 

Leena Turku, a senior officer with the Finnish Immigration Service Migri, told All Points North that the agency has issued 3,600 residence permits to international students this year. She added that 500 applications were turned down, while another 1,000 are still to be processed. 

Turku said that the agency had been understaffed during the month of June, when it usually begins processing students’ residence permit applications. She pointed out that students may encounter further delays in processing times if their documentation is inadequate or faulty. 

The Migri officer explained that most denials resulted from fraudulent bank statements or inadequate insurance coverage. "It can’t be normal travel insurance but must cover the individual for one year," she added.  

"Not enough" to have a great education system 

Heidi Rättyä is a board member of the National Union of University Students in Finland (SYL) and responsible for international affairs. In response to Turku’s remarks, she responded that international students have sometimes face difficulty meeting the requirement to provide proof of insurance.  

"One problem is that it’s hard to find an insurance agency that provides insurance that is also valid in Finland," she pointed out. 

Rättyä said that SYL has been lobbying politicians to make it easier for international students to come to Finland to study and also to stay on and work. 

"We have a great education system, but that’s not enough. We are far up north and it gets very cold, so Finland won’t be the first choice for many people," she noted, and called for a one-stop shop to help international students deal with school applications, residence permits, insurance coverage and other requirements.  

International students can find out more about the work of the National Union of University Students in Finland online, but should turn to local chapters of the organisation for advice on practical issues.

Chinese students visit Finland to learn about local education

Via GBTimes.com: Chinese students visit Finland to learn about local education.

Around 80 students and teachers from Jiangsu Province in east China arrived in Finland on July 11 and 18 to attend two separate summer camps. The two-week camps took place in Tampere and Helsinki in Finland and included visits to Tallinn, Estonia and Stockholm, Sweden. 

Finnish teaching for Chinese students 

The camp was organised by Finnish company Sumino Ltd. in cooperation with the University of Tampere and was designed to showcase the Finnish way of education. 

Lancy Jia, from Sumino Ltd, explained her inspiration for organising the camp: “Finnish basic education is really wonderful […] They play very much, but also learn so much. In China, the kids have somehow too much homework, so I felt like they could spend their summer vacation time here and experience how Finns study.”  

During their trip, the students, aged between 12 and 16, had Finnish-style classes at Tampere University, taught by a Finnish educator. 

The teacher, Sofia Vesa, had no previous experience with Chinese students and was slightly worried that the teaching methods might be too different, but in the end she was positively surprised. “They were really active and happily joined in with everything, and readily told their own opinions. It was a joy to work with them,” Vesa said. 

Learning from nature 

The Chinese teachers also learned from the trip.  

English teacher Li Futing compared the Chinese and Finnish ways of teaching: “I think [the students] really experienced a lot. They walked out of the classroom, they learned from the nature and they walked in the woods. I think the students can not only get the knowledge from books, but also from nature. In China, outside the classroom there are roads, cars and so much noise, but in Finland it’s a totally different picture. We can just step into nature and get close to the birds and stop, feel and experience.”  

As their teacher says, visiting and learning in Finland's unique natural environment was a big part of the students' experience. While outdoors, the students got to play and complete different assignments. 

Reflecting on his favourite activity, one of the students, Yin Mingyang, 13, said: ”It was that time when we went to the forest. We were assigned the task of building a house in 15 minutes. Our team thought a long time about it and worked together to find a great variety of branches, flowers and grass, and built a super, beautiful house. Our team won the first prize.”  

Satu Vuorinen, the head of international affairs for the city of Tampere, was present to welcome the students to Finland. She also spoke of the importance of nature in Finnish teaching and why Tampere is the best place to learn in Finland. 

“Finnish education is number one globally and Tampere, of course, is a great place to visit in order to learn, see and experience Finnish education. In Tampere you can combine nature and the environment - they are important for the well-being of the people," she noted. 

Out of the classroom 

The students also got experience outside the classroom during the visit. Their many activities included visiting Särkänniemi amusement park and the Moomin museum in Tampere, cooking traditional Finnish foods, going to the movies, seeing the many sights of Helsinki and travelling to Stockholm and Tallinn. 

At the end of the trip, student Wang Yutian, 14, thought about what she'd learned: ”I’m a shy girl, but after I came here I made many friends and often talked in English with the teachers. I’ve become more open and easy-going. I think this is what I’m going to keep in future.”

Half of foreign students aim to stay in Finland – but many want better job support

Via Yle Uutiset: Half of foreign students aim to stay in Finland – but many want better job support. 

Foreign students in Finland from outside the EU are more likely to want to stay in the country, according to an international study co-published by the National Agency for Education on Tuesday. 

A survey of international students in their final year of studies found that half of them plan to remain in Finland after graduation, with a quarter planning to stay for two years or more. One fifth said they were unsure whether they would stay.  

Those most interested in staying for longer periods of time are students in business and technical fields, suggests the International Student Barometer (ISB).  

One in seven respondents said they intend to pursue post-graduate studies at the same institutions.  

Concern over brain drain 

The agency’s director, former education minister Olli-Pekka Heinonen, says that the results are "encouraging in terms of Finland’s intellectual capital". At the same time, he expressed concern that student satisfaction was lowest on employment-related issues. 

Nearly half of respondents said they were dissatisfied with support provided by their institutions related to work and career opportunities. 

“If jobs and highly-educated foreigners who are already familiar with Finland do not match up, we will lose know-how to other places in the world,” Heinonen warned.  

Altogether students in 17 countries were questioned last autumn for the ISB. In Finland, 6,650 foreign students at 15 institutions of higher learning took part.

Finland: Sharp drop in Mikkeli university applications after admin charge for overseas students

Via Yle Uutiset: Sharp drop in Mikkeli university applications after admin charge for overseas students.

Applicant numbers for English language courses at Mikkeli University of Applied Sciences have plummeted after the college introduced an administration charge for non-EU applicants. 

For the first time, prospective students from outside the EU or European Economic Area face a 100 euro charge for applying to one of the college’s three English language programmes, in business, environmental engineering and IT. 

Since the introduction of the charge, the number of applications has fallen by a third, with 180 people applying compared to 274 last year. University admissions planner Riitta Heikkilä believes the reduction is a direct result of the fee. “It’s filtered out the so-called non-serious applicants,” she said.  

This autumn will see the final intake of students who can study for completely free, after the Finnish parliament voted last year to introduce tuition fees for non-EU or EEA students as of autumn 2017. 

“It’s worrying what the impact will be,” admissions planner Riitta Heikkilä admits.  

The government has outlined a minimum fee of 1,500 euros, giving institutions discretion to set the upper limit for the payment. Helsinki University has announced it will charge non-EU students between 10,000 to 25,000 euros per year for foreign-language Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programmes. 

Finnish legislation however requires institutions to provide financial aid programmes for students completing paid programmes, such as tuition-fee reductions or stipends to help with living expenses.  

There are currently more than 20,000 foreign students attending Finnish universities, the majority of which come from outside of the EU and EEA. 

At present Finland does not charge any tuition fees in regular degree programmes for any students, regardless of their nationality. However they are responsible for their own living expenses while studying in the country. According to Eurostat, Finland is the fourth most expensive member state of the EU and EEA.

University of Helsinki to introduce tuition fees of €13,000–18,000 for non-EU/EEA students

Via the Helsinki Times: University of Helsinki to introduce tuition fees of €13,000–18,000 for non-EU/EEA students.

The University of Helsinki has announced its decision to impose tuition fees of 13,000–18,000 euros on its postgraduate degree students from outside the European Union and the European Economic Area (EEA). 

The tuition fees will be adopted for a total of 34 master's degree programmes taught in a foreign language starting in autumn 2017. 

The University of Helsinki explains in a press release that the tuition fees have been determined based not only on the costs of the programmes but also on its profile and on the tuition fees charged by other universities, especially elsewhere in the Nordics. 

The fees will be introduced in conjunction with an education reform that will rationalise the degree programmes offered by the University of Helsinki and emphasise their quality and multi-disciplinary dimension. More than a half of the new master's programmes will be taught in a foreign language. 

The University of Helsinki is thereby seeking to promote the international aspect of its degree programmes and double the number of foreign master's degree students, Keijo Hämäläinen, the vice rector in charge of academic, research and innovation affairs, says in the press release. 

“We want to ensure our high-quality degree programmes attract talented students from all over the world,” he states. 

The Universities Act, which obliges higher education institutions to charge tuition fees from students from outside the EU and EEA starting in 2017, also stipulates that the institutions must set up scholarship programmes to financially support students liable for the fees. The University of Helsinki is to iron out the details of its scholarship programme during the course of next academic year. 

Most of the revenues derived from the tuition fees will be used to organise the degree programmes as well as to fund the scholarship programmes and international student recruitment activities of the University of Helsinki, according to the press release.

Academics fear tuition fees for Finnish, EU university students

Via Yle Uutiset, more worrying news: Academics fear tuition fees for Finnish, EU university students.

In one of many dramatic moves, the Finnish Parliament voted in December to introduce the tuition fees for non-European students. At the time, the government outlined a minimum fee of 1,500 euros, giving institutions the freedom to decide the size of the charge. 

Academics are now concerned that the fees are the thin edge of a big wedge that will also affect EU nationals. Last week, liberal economist Juhana Vartiainen, an MP from the conservative National Coalition Party, tweeted a suggestion that fees could also apply to Finnish students. 

Speaking to Yle on Monday morning Jukka Kekkonen, a professor of legal history at Helsinki University, said he's worried that this trial balloon floated by a government party politician could become more concrete. 

"I see this overture as a kind of trial balloon. Unfortunately very often during the last government's term in office it happened that in a few years trial balloons became fact," Kekkonen said. 

Cutting from the best

 Aalto University president Tuula Teeri condemned what she called the disproportionate financial pressure put on the country's best higher learning institutions. She added that the austerity programme would lower the level of scientific study in Finland. 

"Now we are imposing disproportionately large cuts on the universities that are capable of being internationally competitive," Teeri noted. 

Last week Aalto and Helsinki universities revealed they'd decided to slash a combined total of 1,300 positions from their payrolls. 

At the same time, Helsinki University announced annual tuition fees ranging from 10,000 to 25,000 euros for new non-EU students. Lappeenranta University of Technology in eastern Finland said its fees will be around 10,000 euros.

Foreign students face tuition fees in Finland

Via Yle Uutiset: Foreign students face tuition fees in Finland.

The Finnish Parliament decided on Tuesday to impose tuition fees for non-European university-level students. The ruling, passed by a vote of 137-46, will affect students from outside the EU or European Economic Area (EEA). 

A fee of at least 1500 euros will be charged per school year for those studying towards degrees in languages other than Finnish or Swedish, apparently beginning in August 2017. The fees will not be levied on doctoral students or researchers. Universities will also establish a financial aid system offering scholarships to assist students in paying their fees. 

The measure was unanimously backed by the three government parties. Most MPs from the opposition Social Democratic and Christian Democrats parties also voted in favour of it. The Greens, Left Alliance and Swedish People's Party opposed it as MPs rushed through a series of votes before the Christmas recess. 

At present Finland does not charge any tuition fees in regular degree programmes for any students, regardless of their nationality. However they are responsible for their own living expenses while studying in the country. According to Eurostat, Finland is the fourth most expensive member state of the EU and EEA.

Who needs Oxbridge? Meet the British students headed for Europe

Via The Guardian: Who needs Oxbridge? Meet the British students headed for Europe. Excerpt:

Jaska Clifford, 26, from Great Yarmouth, found that his first degree (music technology at Leeds Metropolitan University) didn’t leave him with many employment options. 

“I made a hasty decision to go into it and when I graduated there really wasn’t much work available, unless I wanted to move to London.” He ended up finding casual work in cafes and bars, as a kitchen porter in a large hotel and for the Royal Mail as a Christmas temp – nothing that made use of his qualifications. 

It’s a fairly familiar tale. Although the latest figures suggest that the job market for graduates has improved slightly, recent research from the Higher Education Statistics Agency showed that a third of working graduates were in non-professional jobs, such as cleaning and customer service, six months after leaving university. 

Clifford decided to retrain in a more marketable skill; but studying in the UK proved too expensive. He used StudyPortals to research courses in different countries, eventually settling on a course in construction management in Hämeenlinna, Finland, a city of roughly 70,000 people. 

“I knew that tuition was free, their English is very good and that the level of education here is high,” he says. “I’m the first person to come here from England in a really long time, apparently. There are only two Finnish people in my class of 21. I think nine are Russian, then there’s a guy from Ghana, two guys from Nepal, a Chinese guy, two from somewhere further east and two from Kosovo.” 

Clifford is enjoying the different culture. “In Leeds, my first experience of freshers’ week was lots of binge-drinking. Here, we’re doing a group presentation at an event in the woods on Friday.” 

He can already see new opportunities. “Once my four years here are up, I might be able to work in Finland, or in the UK, or I’ll have all these contacts in different countries. It gives you a wider pool of people to draw on.”

How much do foreign students cost Finland?

Via Yle Uutiset: How much do foreign students cost Finland?

As Finnish officials debate tuition fees for foreign students, a new study indicates that non-Finns cost universities more – but other institutes of higher education less. 

The costs of tertiary education for foreigners are difficult to determine. A study published on Friday by the state-supported Centre for International Mobility (CIMO) aims to provide some idea of what educating foreigners costs Finland. The report was carried out for CIMO by the VATT Institute for Economic Research (VATT), which is also state-funded. 

The study’s most surprising finding is that at universities of applied sciences and polytechnics, "foreign students have a lower cost impact than Finnish students". However the researchers stress that the data is not reliable enough to calculate exact price tags. For universities, foreign students may be significantly more expensive than Finnish ones. 

Price estimates vary greatly 

If the cost of education at all tertiary institutions is divided by the number of students, the average price is around 7,000 euros a year. At polytechnics, costs are slightly higher. 

Colleges and universities have permanent overhead costs that remain steady regardless of how many people attend them, though. When these are taken into consideration, VATT estimates that each full-time basic degree student costs an average of 2800 euros annually. By this same yardstick, the cost at polytechnics is some 2300 euros. 

Besides costs, foreign students bring Finland economic benefits in terms of consumption and work. Students may receive study grants from abroad, which they spend here on housing and food, for instance. They may also work part-time and pay taxes here. Those who live on student aid from overseas are generally a net gain for Finland, the paper suggests. 

Tuition plan on the shelf for now 

In December, the government abandoned its plan to charge university tuition fees for students from outside the European Economic Area studying in English. 

It had proposed that universities would charge at least 4,000 euros a year. The plan had been promoted by some higher education institutions as well as business groups – but opposed by many student and lecturers’ associations. It was sent back to a working group for reconsideration. It remains to be seen whether the idea will be revived by the next government, expected to take office a couple of months from now.