New target set of 50% of young people going to university

Finland has announced the latest phase of a major package of higher education reforms, with ambitious targets to increase the proportion of young adults with degrees to as close to 50% as possible by 2030.

The move comes on the back of a separate pilot to boost the number of people qualified to doctoral level, outlined earlier this year, which will see 1,000 more graduates leaving university with a PhD. The country’s universities are also looking to attract more students from overseas.

The Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture said the proposals were aimed at increasing growth and productivity, and to boost the nation’s economy. Currently, some 40% of young people in Finland achieve a degree.

Plans to increase the number of young adults with degrees was revealed last week as part of government funding proposals that will see more tertiary and university places created from next year.

A package of €3.8 billion (US$4.19 billion) was announced for tertiary education and tuition, of which €10.5 million will be spent on increasing the number of available places in tertiary education in 2025. In total, €41.3 million has been set aside for increasing places between 2024 to 2027.

Measures will also be drawn up in the coming months to “free up capacity in education institutions for young applicants completing their first degree”, according to a statement from the Ministry.

Erja Heikkinen, science policy director at the Ministry of Education and Culture, told University World News: “If you compare Finland with other countries, the number of younger members of the population aged 25 to 34 years with degrees is much lower in other OECD countries, at a little over 40%.

“Our policy is based on evidence that the jobs that will be available in Finland in the future require skills that are gained in higher education.”

She added: “This, combined with the low and decreasing birth rate in Finland, means we have a struggle to get the young to become interested in higher education, and the jobs that they can access with a degree from a higher education institution.

“But it is not just about the workforce, though this is important, but also about inclusion, and growing our society ecologically, economically and socially.”

The proposal is also seen as protecting democracy in Finland by improving critical thinking abilities in the population, Heikkinen said.

“It has a basis in our democracy, in a world where nothing is clear anymore and we can see what is happening in other countries.

“We believe that the higher the education rate of the population, the more immune we will be to all sorts of conspiracy theories,” she explained.

Target incentives

Students are already incentivised to complete their studies within a target period, so they are ready to go out into the workplace, or to embark upon higher degrees.

But ministers believe that too many undergraduates are taking an excessive amount of time to complete their first degree, which in turn delays them achieving a masters or a PhD.

“As we, the state of Finland, pay for the studies, we don’t want them to take too long because it means the student’s resources and those of the higher education institution are not being used in the proper way,” Heikkinen said.

She said the reasons why it takes some students longer than three years to do a bachelor degree, and a further two years to complete a masters, was a “complicated phenomenon with no silver bullet” solution.

On average, Finnish students are 21.6 years old when they begin their studies and 28 years old when they graduate.

A report carried out by Academic Engineers and Architects in Finland TEK, two years ago, found academic burnout and mental health challenges among students was one reason why studies were taking up to four months longer to complete a bachelor degree.

A study from the OECD, published in 2010, found the Finnish system of entry to higher education was inefficient, with students having to apply multiple times to get a place.

Currently, students who began their studies from 2014 onwards may be eligible for student loan compensation if they complete their course within the specified period and their outstanding debt is more than €2,500.

Each type of degree carries a target time for completion, but this may vary depending on the subject being taken.

To receive compensation – or reimbursement – students will be expected to complete within six years a bachelor and masters, or a masters only degree, comprising 300 credits in total. For degrees that require 330 credits the target time is 6.5 academic years, or seven academic years for a degree of 360 credits.

For students embarking on a degree at a university of applied science, or a bachelor level degree of 180 credits, the target time is 3.5 years, on a sliding scale rising to five years for 270 credits.

There may be exemptions to these rules, however, which include doing military service, having a child, suffering from illness, or doing part of the degree at an overseas university where the times of the academic year may differ.

Matching PhDs to industry

Meanwhile, the first cohort of the expanded PhD scheme, which would see the number of doctoral students increase by 1,000 a year, has now been recruited, with the programme oversubscribed by ten times the available places.

About half of the first 500 students to be taken on so far are from overseas, with the recruitment process still ongoing.

One of the pressures now will be to match up the PhD subjects with related industries, and to encourage more doctoral students out of academia so that businesses can benefit from their knowledge and expertise.

“It’s not possible to match up students with all disciplines,” Heikkinen said. “One of the problems in our PhD education has been that there’s no contact to other working life, apart from academia,” she noted.

At the same time, she said, there is a need for industries to become more involved and interested in education.

“We have had bursts of trying to do this for 30 years or so, but the problem has always been that the PhD students want to stick with academics, no matter whether or not they get a salary, because that’s what they are familiar with.

“By the time they have finished their PhD in their late 30s they have no other working life experience,” she explained.

Industry also needs a change of mindset, Heikkinen said, with many companies not recognising that they might benefit from recruiting employees with higher academic qualifications.

Dorothy Lepkowska is a freelance education journalist and writer.