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The Finnish Prime Minister wants to start charging tuition fees to non-EU university students as soon as possible – a move which will meet with fierce opposition from lecturer unions.
 Oulu University
‘It is time to get rid of our allergy to selling Finnish education for term fees to students from other countries,’ he said last week. ‘I hope that we can, as fast as possible, start selling Aalto University’s high quality education to students from outside the EU while also safeguarding opportunities for students from developing countries with the help of scholarships.’
Vanhanen made his remarks at a speech at the opening, last week, of the new ‘Aalto University’. The mega-institution brings together Helsinki University, Helsinki University of Technology and the Helsinki School of Economics.
The changes are heralded by last year’s Education Act.
"When the Education Act comes into force," says Anita Lehikoinen, "departments will be privatised and encouraged to look beyond the state for funding." On a trial basis, "they will be able to charge tuition fees to a limited number of international (non-European Union) students studying English-language masters courses".
Her colleague, Birgitta Vuorinen in the Department for Education and Science Policy, is convinced this will not lead to a "corrupt" situation where departments take on as many international students as they can to increase income. "It's for a trial period on a very limited number of courses and I don't think that many people would want to come to Finland."
The reform was opposed by the Finnish Union of University Lecturers. The Union’s chairman, Dr Tuula Hirvonen, regards them as unfair and as a dangerous precedent.
‘Our founding principle is that there should equality in education and equal access,’ she told 65DN. ‘We are opposed to fees for non-EU students because there aren’t the proper grants in place for poorer students.’
‘We also think that this precedent is a stepping stone to tuition fees for Finnish students and these are now already being discussed. It will stop qualified students from applying because they’ll think university will be too expensive.
‘This is part of an international tend,’ she added, ‘and our government goes with this bandwagon. People in Parliament told us that our arguments were reasonable but then voted in favour of the change anyway.’
‘I think it’s a question of ideology . . . it won’t let us compete with Britain or America because we will never be able to charge such high fees as their universities. We want equal access . . . the people in favour of the fees want to turn education into a market. We don’t think it should be a market.’
Nobody from the Finnish Union of University Rectors, many of whose members defend tuition fees, could be reached for comment.
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I am a non-EU student at the University of Oulu.I am studying here from last 3 years and my family is supporting my studies. As a non-EU student we are facing a lot of problems already in terms of part time Job. Most of the students go to Helsinki to do summer job to support their studies every year because there is no part time job in Oulu if you don't speak Finnish language. Most of the student comes to Finland from developing countries because they can not afford tuition fee. If Finnish government approved this law then there will very less or few international student.Another big reason is the cold weather.
