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Swedish Government proposes Tuition Fees for Foreign Students

In the 2010 Budget Bill, the Government proposes that foreign students wishing to study in Sweden should pay fees.

"Sweden is currently one of few countries in the world that does not charge foreign students fees. Swedish students who wish to study abroad have to pay. It is not reasonable to expect Swedish taxpayers to sponsor foreign students’ studies. This undermines the financing of Sweden’s higher education institutions," says Minister for Higher Education and Research Tobias Krantz. 


The proposal means that foreign students (from countries outside the European Economic Area) will pay for their studies starting in the autumn term of 2011. The universities and higher education institutions themselves will decide how much to charge.

"Education has become a global market. Students can choose between higher education institutions the world over. I think that Sweden should compete in this market by having higher education institutions of high quality, not by offering a free education," says Mr Krantz.

The introduction of fees will be combined with a grant system. The Government intends to present a special bill later on in the autumn with all the details.

Click here for more details.

Finnish Foreign Ministry suspects some West African study applicants may have used forged certificates

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs suspects that the HAMK University of Applied Sciences in Hämeenlinna has not sufficiently examined the skills and motivation of 130 African students recruited for the school in a late application process in the late summer. Large numbers of West Africans have applied for other Finnish educational institutions in the summer.

More than half of the residence permit applications handled at the Finnish Embassy in Nigeria in June and July were seen to include forged documents. Most of the applicants were from Nigeria and Ghana, but some were also from Cameroon and Gambia.   

Engineering students from Ghana and Nigeria were sought for HAMK in an additional application process, because four of the school’s five English language technology programmes were left almost empty in the application process in the spring. “How have the qualifications and motivation of these students been checked?” asks Vesa Häkkinen of the ministry’s passports and visas department.  


Applicants in the new round included a few Finns, a number of Nepalese and Chinese, and a large number of Nigerians and Ghanaians, says Leena Luoma, chief of student services at HAMK. Applicants who appeared to meet the requirements, based on the copies of their school certificates that they had submitted. Entrance examinations were organised in China, Nepal, and Ghana. In Ghana, there were 180 applicants taking part in the exam, of whom 130 were accepted. Now these 130 are applying for residence permits at the Finnish Embassy in Nigeria.

Earlier in the spring, the Embassy in Abudja had granted residence permits to 150 students who had applied to various institutions in Finland. “Not all of the 130 will be getting permission to enter the country. One of the reasons is that some of the applications have proven to be forgeries, and we don’t even have that many opening vacancies”, Luoma says.  


The Foreign Ministry says that forging certificates is so common in these African countries, that the ministry suspects that the primary motivation of the applicants is to get a residence permit for the Schengen countries. “We have no way to ascertain the authenticity of the degree certificate before the students have come here”, Luoma says. Nigeria has been a leading country for applicants for several years. Luoma says that forged papers have been isolated matters, and that students have generally been successful in their studies. “Africans, Nepalese, and other foreigners have been very good students”, says HAMK Director Veijo Hintsanen. “A much bigger problem than falsified papers has been that it is difficult, especially for Africans, to get trainee positions in Finland.” HAMK has always had more foreign than Finnish applicants for its international technology programmes. Foreigners must undergo an international language test. Many already have an academic degree of some kind when they enter the engineering programme.


The Foreign Ministry also has questions about the registration fees that foreign students have been asked to pay at Finnish educational institutions. In principle, studying in Finland is free, and Finnish students are not asked to pay any fees for the privilege of taking part in an entrance exam. The fee for the exam held in Ghana was EUR 35, collected either by the school or the Embassy.

Project Chief Annika Grönholm of the Finnish National Board of Education says that it is up to the institutions themselves to decide what kinds of registration fees they want to charge. “A greater problem are the private agents operating in Nepal and Africa, who fill in applications, get copies of certificates, and charge any manner of fees from the applicants.”      

Source: http://www.hs.fi/english

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Nordic Nations Plan to Receive Tuition Fees from International Students

Finland and Sweden are both planning to cash in on the international-student market by charging non-EU students tuition. Proposed changes to the tuition-fee structures in the two nations could see them both compete more aggressively in the lucrative market for international students.

Currently, students from outside the European Union are not charged to attend universities in either country, where they make up only a small proportion of their student bodies. But Finland and Sweden have announced plans to introduce tuition fees for all overseas students, a move they hope will lead to an explosion in their numbers from 2010.

Both countries are particularly interested in the Russian and Asian markets. In addition to bringing in revenue and increasing competitiveness, it is also thought that charging fees could raise the status of their universities among wealthier foreign students, who sometimes assume that if education is free, it is of an inferior standard.

Finnish reforms to facilitate internationalization, due to become law in August, will grant universities independent legal status to allow them greater operational flexibility. The reforms will include charging fees for non-EU students and recruiting academics from overseas.

Concerns have been raised, however, that fees may push international students toward native English-speaking countries, where graduate employment prospects are better. At the moment, getting skilled work in Finland or Sweden is extremely difficult for candidates who do not speak the local language.

Fees would be considerably lower than in the United Kingdom, offering an advantage in an increasingly competitive market. In Finland, fees of between EUR 3,500 (US$2,500) and EUR 12,500 have been proposed for international masters programs, and in Sweden, a figure of about EUR 8,000 has been suggested.

- Times Higher Education Supplement

April 2, 2009

European Commission Looks at Progress in Educational Structures

Ministers from 46 (mainly European) countries met at the end of April to discuss progress made toward the goal of creating a European Higher Education Area by next year under the tenets of the Bologna Process. In a pre-meeting memo, the European Commission outlined the progress it felt had been made in the ten years since the Bologna Declaration was signed.

The memo pointed to an “overall picture … that reveals that substantial progress has been made in all the areas that have been examined, and the benefits of enhanced European cooperation brought about through the Bologna process are evident.” That comment was qualified with a call for “an increased focus on the impact of structural reforms and on how higher education institutions and systems are responding to new challenges.”

The report also noted that “the new three-cycle structure is theoretically fully in place or has at least been extensively introduced in all countries in most institutions and programmes. However, several study fields, such as medical studies, architecture and engineering remain outside these new structures in some countries.”

The memo notes that a first-cycle bachelor program of 180 ECTS credits (3 academic years) has been adopted in 19 countries versus 11 countries that have adopted a 240-credit (4 years) model. At the master’s level, 120 ECTS credits (2 years) appear to be the norm, having been adopted in 29 of the countries analyzed in the report.

-egovmonitor
April 22, 2009

World’s Top 25 Universities in 2008

The top ten features only UK and US universities. Six US and four UK universities top the list. And top 100 shows 37 US universities and 17 UK universities.

“Harvard University remains as the top university, with Yale moving ahead of Cambridge for the second spot. Oxford drops to fourth, while Princeton drops out of the top ten, replaced by the only new entrant in top ten, Columbia University.”

Now in its fifth year, the research is conducted and compiled by QS Quacquarelli Symonds. The 2008 edition reflects the increasing profile of technology-based universities with many of the world’s top universities this area such as Caltech, MIT, ETH Zurich and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology improving their positions.

As demand by international employers for more technology-literate graduates has grown the importance of these universities has risen in the rankings.

Although, it is generally agreed that students should not use the rankings as their only criteria for choosing universities – the ranking system has become increasingly important.”

Please read below the names of the world’s top 25 universities in 2008:

1. Harvard University, USA
2. Yale University, USA
3. University of Cambridge, UK
4. University of Oxford, UK
5. California Institute of Technology, USA
6. Imperial College London, UK
7. University College London, UK
8. University of Chicago, USA
9. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
10. Columbia University, USA
11. University of Pennsylvania, USA
12. Princeton University, USA
13. Duke University, USA
14. Johns Hopkins University, USA
15. Cornell University, USA
16. Australian National University, Australia
17. Stanford University, USA
18. University of Michigan, USA
19. University of Tokyo, Japan
20. McGill University, Canada
21. Carnegie Mellon University, USA
22. King’s College London, UK
23. University of Edinburgh, UK
24. ETH Zurich, Switzerland
25. Kyoto University, Japan

Please click here for further information.

Merry Christmas and Prosperous New Year

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Tuition-Free Education in Sweden

Sweden is one of the Scandinavian countries which does not charge tuition to students both citizens and international students. International students admitted to Swedish undergraduate, masters or PhD programs can attend courses without paying any tuition fee.

In terms of quality of education, Sweden compares favorably with its international peers as a place to acquire quality education. The 2006 Education at a Glance report strengthen Sweden as a desirable study destination and today it continues to gain popularity. Sweden’s spending on education as a proportion of its GDP is rated among the highest in the world.

Unfortunately, Sweden has proposed charging tuition to all international students except those from EU countries, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway. According to the higher education minister Lars Leijonborg, the new tuition system would be implemented on January 1st, 2010, at the latest.

Academics are concerned that proposals to introduce tuition fees for international students at Swedish universities could discourage gifted foreign students from coming to study in Sweden. Swedish universities and unions had objected to the government proposal. The proposal includes stipends for students that cannot afford to pay the tuition. How those stipends would be implemented and how it would impact students from developing countries is yet to be determined. The proposal is included in a bill to be presented in the autumn on how university-level international exchanges can be increased. The fees will be based on the costs incurred by the universities themselves. At the same time, a system of stipends will be implemented for students lacking sufficient funds to pay tuition.

Prospective students should make haste and apply before the 1st January 2010.

Update on Finnish Universities of Applied Sciences Programmes in English

The joint application website for the Universities of Applied Sciences in Finland has been updated with the programmes available in English starting in Aug/Sept 2009 and the universities that offer them.

Please take your and review the one after the other before the application period in January.

Click here for the link to the page.

Good luck

Practical Information about studying in Finnish universities

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This is another hot information about studying in Finland. I have put under my Links a file containing practical information about studying in Finnish Universities.

Check it out. It is a PDF file that shows the comprehensive information on programmes offered in English in Finnish Universities and Universities of Applied Sciences. Please be informed that studying in Finland is Tuition-free. So, do not miss the opportunity.

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