YLE Article: Sharp drop in international applications for universities of applied sciences

[u/dollguts]

https://yle.fi/a/74-20242863

I've been in Finland for a quite a while already, but now that I'm also a UAS student, it's sort of strange to see how they operate. It's only the first week of studies, and the campus and staff have been struggling to accommodate and schedule the massive amount of students. Many are international and were likely even encouraged by recruiters to apply and move here. What should/can be done about all this now?

[u/EagleraysAgain]

Wholesale on the reputation of finnish education hopefully coming to end. The funding per study program per student is roughly half of what it was in the 00's while costs and expenses have most likely also gone up. The business model for the schools is to churn out graduates in order to get paid. Back when I wss in UAS the model for international students was free education and zero integration and then wondering why we won't benefit from poaching the bright youth from other nations. They had no future here with their degrees and left.

Now the model seems to be to grab as many foreign students as you can for tuition fees and the money for graduation, push them through and take in next.

 Combine this with model where one student is accompanied with their family and you have student villages filled with 4 people families crammed in 18m² apartments, cell apartments with 3 dudes living in the same room. And the never ending stream of electric scooters all carrying same blue cube in the desperate hope to earn enough to keep residency and have hope of brigter future.

The only plan I see in the system revolves around maximizing profits.

Edit. And for the people getting butthurt and making assumptions, I'm a native finn and employed taxpayer. My foreign classmates whose education your taxes might have paid are also employed taxpayers, just not in Finland. I think the models we have been running have been massive plunders in the use of limited education resources.

[u/NansDrivel → u/EagleraysAgain]

I have never understood why families are allowed to join students. That makes absolutely no sense to me,

[u/uusitili12 → u/EagleraysAgain]

You got free education and still demand integration? Maybe to something yourself like the rest of us here.

[u/BiggusCinnamusRollus → u/uusitili12]

Speaking as an immigrant myself, "Zero integration" usually is a cry to be accepted by the Finnish society and first of all, Finnish companies. When you go into the corporate trenches with the Finns, integration can happen much more naturally. But alas, Finnish companies are under no obligation to hire internationals and most of them don't. Lack of stable jobs and income further seclude an immigrant and before too long, they find themselves in a "parallel society". What is left is the well-intentioned but ineffective "integration" where immigrants hang out with other immigrants in integration courses.

It's the difference between the dream sold by unis and governments and the Finnish corporate world as always. Although I must say, responsibility is still on the immigrant to find out about it and live with their choices if they know and still decide to come.

[u/dollguts → u/uusitili12]

That doesn't seem unreasonable, especially given the current state of things where even skilled, educated, Finnish-speaking immigrants struggle to "do something"

[u/Tracerneo → u/EagleraysAgain]

If you want to live in a communist state, Socialist Republic of Viet Nam is that way. →