Go to most of the small colleges in the US and you'll probably see the same thing. I don't know what it's like in Finland, but from what I've experienced at Swedish universities it also varies a lot. Uppsala, Lund, KTH etc have great student life and I didn't feel that people took it less seriously than at the american university I've been at.
Sure, we don't pay tuition, but usually parents don't pay for their childrens' living expenses during college either. I have about $50k in debt (very low interest loan), all from living expenses for 5 years. That plus the loss of income during this time means you can't really slack off.
School is free here too. Most people don’t go to college in either Finland or the US. (It’s slightly higher in the US.) But the average person who does go to college graduates with about $30,000 in debt. Which they will make up for given higher salary and lower taxes in the US within a few years. The median post-tax disposable income is $15,000 per year higher in the US than Finland.
Finnish students get allowance from the government for the duration of their studies (max ~60 months) and get government backed cheap loans which they start paying back after their studies.
My own experience is that there are people from very varying backgrounds in the Finnish universities.
Pre-script: I would be interested in better informed descriptions and opinions on the following.
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The title is, per the article itself, a bit misleading.
Per the article (I'm not in a position to assess its accuracy), Swedish and Scandinavian students become financially independent younger than in the U.S. and some other countries. Meaning, at the time they attend post-secondary education / university.
The tuition and such are free, but independent students have significant living expenses that exceed the student stipend. Further, the amount they can earn through work before losing the stipend is capped.
So, students borrow to cover living expenses.
Where the debt comparison with the U.S. weakens:
This is the key. While Swedish students end up with relatively high levels of debt, the monthly costs of carrying that debt are pretty cheap. (It’s about 3.8% of estimated average monthly income of new graduates, according to one study.) Interest rates are low. They’re set by the government and maintained through subsidies. And the length of repayment is long: 25 years or until the student turns 60. In other words, the Swedish system of student debt is financially manageable and sets students up to begin their lives as viable adults separate from their parents...
Across Europe, slumping birth rates represent a long-standing economic, demographic and social problem. Sweden, though, is something of a hotspot for European baby-making. Some see clear links between young people moving out of parental homes early and taking the necessary steps to become parents themselves. (Anyone who has ever lived with mom and dad into their 20s will understand this intuitively.) “Childbearing in developed countries almost invariably takes place after young adults have left their parental home, and home-leaving constitutes a central correlate of fertility and union formation in Europe and other industrialized countries,” wrote sociologists in this 2006 paper.
You said it, cost of living ain’t free. My experience from Sweden is that few people work alongside studies, and even fewer have expenses paid for by well-off parents. Maybe if you’re from the city where you study you stay living and eating at home, but otherwise it’s very common to take out a (fairly cheap) student loan from the Swedish Board of Student Finance to cover your expenses.
Small tidbit of info:
In Finland students don't pay for studying. Instead, the government pays money to the students for studying.
I've heard this is not the case in US.
Monthly allowance (around 400-500EUR in total) and free university education (classes and labs are free, you have to buy or loan the books) are the main characteristics of Finnish university system. Student loans play only a small part. Many people in my student generation didn't even take them, even if they are more or less risk free loans.
I get that paying for your education is pretty bad, but as someone who is enjoying free bachelor level education in Finland I can tell that the amount of quality teachers is pretty low, our small campus has maybe 4 teachers I'd consider competent.
I'm also the kind of guy who'd enjoy extracurricular clubs, but sadly out of the few hundred students at our campus total of 3 of us (me included) are interested in club activities and only student body event that gets more than 10 people attending is yearly "drinking cruise".
I can't say for sure that these two things are related, but I have a hunch that since people aren't actually paying for their education most don't take it as seriously and thus people just do the bare minimum they can get away with. Or maybe it's just the general level of education which is so much lower nothing feels "real" at least considering how much I read U.S. based engineering students whine about...
It's true that Sweden/Finland don't do quite as well in this area as places like Denmark (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_loans_in_Denmark), Germany, or France, all of which supply are fairly generous with living cost grants for students.
Compared to US students, though, they're doing great.
While some schools will allow Americans to go to college for free or for only a little money, they aren't going to put them in a dorm, feed them, and give then other living expenses.
I'd imagine even with free tuition, I'd imagine Sweden is more expensive than going to your local state school. And you can't get US financial aid or loans for foreign school.
People always compare brand name American private schools with public school in other countries. But America has public schools.
You can do your first two years at community college for near free. You can live with your family, work part time at McD's and have more than enough money to pay for school. Even if you don't want to work, poor students can afford tuition with Pell Grants, and middle class students can cover it with Stafford Loans.
Then do your last two years at a state school, which are often in cheap college towns. In a state like Illinois, you can do 2 years in community college, and then 2 year at UIUC--a world class university--for only like 30k in tuition for the whole 4 years.
It wouldn't surprise me if going to Sweden cost 30k more in living expenses over that period, especially if you live with your family for the first 2 years.
> Its common here in the US to have a part time job to pay for your expenses. Is it not the case in sweden?
It's not particularly common, no. You might work a month or two during the summer breaks, perhaps.
As mentioned, tuition itself is free, but students still need to pay basic living costs. In order to allow students to focus on their studies, students receive financial aid towards these costs while studying. Pretty much everybody is covered for this aid. Part of it is "free" (i.e., a grant that you get every month, which you do not need to pay back), and a second part is a loan, which needs to be payed back later. You can choose yourself whether you'd like to avail of the "loan" part, and for how much (up to an upper limit). The loan has pretty good terms; you have several decades to pay it off (if you wish to take that long), at low interest rates (it used to be ~2% a few years ago, and is currently 0.6%).
This is available for non-Swedish citizens studying in Sweden as well, I believe.
I went to college in Sweden and had all that you had, I didn't pay anything. I received about 1000-1500$ a month for attending school from the government.
I'm a 22 year old university student in Sweden (starting my 2nd year now) and I find it hard to imagine life with school costing a fortune like this.
Sure I, and most students in Sweden, take loans to pay for food, rent and books but the school itself is free - even now! We're also getting a good low rent loan with a part allowance. No wonder we're having so many foreign students. That's going to change from next year though when the foreigners will get charged.
Whereas higher education is free in most of europe, you are still usually reliant on getting sent money from your parents to finance your living expenses. In Scandinavia you are not dependant on having parents with money to pursue higher education.
If you get accepted to a University, you apply and you'll get equivalent of 13-14k usd every year of study to cover living expenses.
Up to 40% of it gets converted to a grant, depending on how many of your classes you passed. The loan is also under very favorable conditions, interest free while studying, very low interest after finished, usually paid over 20 years, and you can postpone payment up to 36 times (3 years) whenever you want.
I guess if you're a year/two into a course in America you'd probably have $20,000 in debt to pay. If you have to pay it without graduating then you'd probably think you'd wasted the money - so you'd be likely to finish the degree to make sure you got "something" out of it.
By contrast here in Finland education is free, so it's a lot easier for people to start courses, and if it didn't suit then drop out. Or move cities, and get a job.
Where education is free I'd expect both more people to sign up to it, but also more people to drop out. Or take 10+ years to eventually get their degree whilst continuing to work.
The universities themselves are paid for in full by the government, on top of that any student receives equivalent to about 300 euros/month to cover costs of living, no strings attached. Now that's not nearly enough to live on in Sweden so most people do get loans offered with very preferable terms to students, although some prefer to get a part-time job to cover costs of living.
A lot of the cost of American college doesn't go towards education but things like sports stadiums and teams, various non-academic events, administrators, various other non-academic staff, uniquely-expensive American legal costs and insurance, on-campus police (a big wtf for Europeans), and then there are also those people who decide which Halloween costumes are appropriate for students, investigate various misconduct on campus etc.
Americans expect college campuses to be like resorts, parents expect a lot of pampering and personalized whatever for their kid etc. In Europe, university students are independent adults who take a bunch of courses, take exams etc, but have lives on their own, outside uni. They may rent a room in housing with connections to the university, but the university doesn't babysit them. They don't expect anyone else to keep tabs on what they need to do, no pampering. There is no customer mentality. You spare a lot of money this way.
So it's at least in part cultural and also reflects in different attitudes regarding healthcare, restaurants, retail, and general business conduct.
Sure, we don't pay tuition, but usually parents don't pay for their childrens' living expenses during college either. I have about $50k in debt (very low interest loan), all from living expenses for 5 years. That plus the loss of income during this time means you can't really slack off.
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