Forty percent of Finns who take their degrees abroad stay abroad, according to research by KELA.

Mia Saarikallio-Torp, who conducted the research, claimed there were several reasons for this trend.

‘Many are women and they’ve studied abroad for several years,’ she explained. ‘Oftentimes, they have found a husband abroad so it makes it difficult to come back.’

Women make-up the majority of students in Finnish Higher Education and, as such, the majority of Finns interviewed by the researcher were female. As part of the research, 6500 students were interviewed from Finland, Norway, Iceland and the Faroe Islands.

Many of Mrs Saarikallio-Torp’s correspondents ‘would like to come back’ but found it difficult to get a job in Finland, especially because, in their view, there were ‘difficulties’ in presenting a foreign degree to a Finnish employer.

‘The employers don’t understand how degrees from abroad work so it is more difficult to get a job,’ the researcher added. The Finnish system tends to be based around ‘credits’ and ‘modules’ which is not the case at all British universities. Students there also tend to leave with just a Bachelors, rather than a Masters, degree.

‘They also stay for practical reasons,’ continued Mrs Saarikallio-Torp. ‘It is difficult moving to another country and they have graduated abroad up to five years earlier, so they want to get work experience before maybe coming back.’

According to Mrs Saarikallio-Torp, many of her correspondents had gone to university abroad because they had been unable to get a university place in Finland. University in Finland is highly competitive. According to Birgitta Vuorinen, a civil servant in the Department of Education, in 2008, 68,000 Finns competed for just 18,000 fist year university places.

Popular destinations for Finnish university rejects include Britain, Sweden and Estonia, with around half of international students at Tartu University being Finns according to university officials there.

Mrs Saarikallio-Torp did not wish to comment on whether a perception that Finns with foreign degrees are rejects from Finnish universities might affect their prospects with Finnish employers. Such graduates were, however, more likely to work for international companies.