Finland’s government is preparing to change the law regarding tuition fees for non-EU and non-EEA students.
The proposed reform of the Universities Act and the Universities of Applied Sciences Act means the tuition fees paid by students coming to Finland from outside the EU and EEA must cover the full cost of their education. The change will also see the introduction of an application fee for such students.
The new rules would apply to degree programmes where instruction is given in a language other than Finnish or Swedish.
Right-wing govt doesn’t want immigrants
This proposal was outlined in Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s programme for government, agreed among the four-party coalition before they took office last summer.
“Charging fees for tuition at full cost aims to improve the finances of higher education institutions and to encourage foreigners studying in Finland to stay in the country,” Minister of Science and Culture Sari Multala wrote in a government press release.
A survey published last year found that nearly half of foreign students planned to leave Finland after graduating.
The introduction of the application fee aims to “reduce the number of injudicious and low-quality applications”, which lead to extra administrative work for higher education institutions.
Foolish move by the govt
It is foolish for the Finnish government to think, that people would actually come to a racist country and pay full tuition, while its universities are not valued very much in the world.
The tuition fees may be a lot of money for someone coming from a country with a lower standard of living. This, added to the fact that it’s extremely hard to find work as a foreigner in Finland to be able to pay for the fees or for a living, means that the students are more likely to choose some other country for their studies.
The people who have the money will most likely choose Yale, Oxford, Harvard or MIT – or the like. The only, at least slight international fame-holding Finnish uni, Aalto, doesn’t come even close. Finnish education is not as good as it once was. Finland doesn’t have anything to brag about.
Educated immigrants that wish to study and then perhaps to integrate, are driven, or more likely, kept away. Until now, the low tuition fee has drawn talent to the country, but it will not be an option in the future.
The fact that half of the international students have chosen to continue their lives somewhere else than in Finland, speaks in volumes of the society and the government, not so much of the quality of the applicants the government wishes to address.
