I don’t think most people care. The only places I have seen that there has been resistance to this is in academic circles. Although foreign students make this a big deal, Norwegian students who want to study abroad have been affected by receiving less student aid now.
It would have been difficult to defend that people should receive free education in Norway, while Norwegian students should have less opportunity to study abroad. It is therefore not only international students who are affected by the new policy.
It is also difficult to defend that Norwegian taxpayers should pay for the education of students from countries that require payment from Norwegian students as well.
Well I don’t care. I can see it sucks for non EU/EEC students, but on the other hand now more Norwegians get accepted to university since now there’s fewer foreigners to compete with for a spot.
Basic needs in primary school, health care, birthing departments and more is all facing budget cuts, and those are for us who pay taxes.
I have zero fucks to give for a foreigner who wants a bachelor paid by Norwegian taxes.
Also, I’ve studied with quite a few freemovers, and they are not that sympathetic either, its usually ‘I just came for the free education, thanks and suck on this, tee hee’.
That the government the last 20-30 years has been making ever increasingly terrible choices. This is one of those
I think you have to be pretty narcissistic and disillusioned to think Norwegian taxpayers owes any non citizens anything. That’s my two cents. I’m not crying for any freeloaders, but especially not for those who think they are entitled to come here.
Oh my godddddd look at the comments here lmfao 🤩
why would tax payers in Norway have a problem if all the saved money goes back to the system to improve it further, this also means more cheaper student houses available to the tax payers.
also in the last thread we had about this someone pointed out most of the students leave the country after completing their studies.
If I go to the US, I pay for uni. It should be the same the other way
I don’t really care that much about it, but I think it is weird that it doesn’t count for European students.
You should give everyone free education, or only give Norwegian citizens free education. Everything else is discrimination.
As someone who isn’t a student anymore, I sadly don’t care too much about this anymore, but as a former international student I sympathise with the internationals who now are losing a fantastic opportunity to study pretty much at no cost other than the costs of living in Norway (can they work while here? If so they had a solution to that)
While I do understand and kinda agree with the fact that international students should pay something, there is two main problems with the current project/law:
1) the actual amount of fees. That is *A LOT*. Like for medicine and engineering, this is the same level of fees as Harvard and the other big names in US. I don’t think I need to precise that US is not an example of accessibility and fairness in education, so I would say this is a little high in my opinion for fees to study in Norway. Hear me right: international should pay some fees, but not 350k NOK per year… hva i helvete…
2) That may surprise some Norwegians here, but the Norwegian academia *NEEDS* international to survive. It’s not helping, it’s keeping it alive literally. Probably ~50% if not more of PhDs and post docs are internationals currently in Norway. That is A LOT of you compare to the average of other countries. Norway academia is too small to only survive from Norwegian students, and norwegians are mostly not interested in pursuing graduate studies like a PhD. Again, I know PhDs and post docs are not students and won’t pay these fees, but a not negligible amount of these also did their masters in Norway beforehand. Now, you remove 90-95% of these candidates, research in Norway will be affected.
edit: typo
I feel for the international students, i really do, but in the end its our tax funds which pays for this, and i’d rather the govt. cut spending on this than on elder care or health care.
Consequences part is utter bullshit. But this whole poster reeks of shit.
Public/state education is a scam. Unless you’re gonna be a doctor or lawyer.
Lol talk about fear mongers. Is it Norway’s job to educate the world? I don’t think so.
even if they wanted to add tuition fee rule, they had to give it more time. Many international students who applied didn’t receive any answer from the universities even though they had to receive it mid April. The delay is because the Norwegian government still didn’t approve it.
I don’t see why Norway should be the only idealist country when everyone else is charging.
I’m not Norwegian but agree with that non-eu citizens have to pay to study here. Many international students I know have no interest in living in Norway after they have completed their studies.
I don’t get it – was it ever free for people in general outside the EU/EEA to study in Norway? That must have been only through the institutions’ approved exchange programs, no?
I went on an exchange program outside the EU when I was studying at the University of Oslo, didn’t have to pay fee, because there was an exchange agreement with a US university, so US students got to go to Norway for free as well on that program. Is it those kinds of agreements they’re doing away with?
Not that I’d say the US is an “underprivileged” country, as the poster mentions…
I’m not well informed to have a opinion on the subject. However I wloud like to see the number of foreign students who opt to stay in the country out of total amount of foreign students
Well, I understand the message but the premise is wrong. Even tho Norway is not in the EU it is still in Schengen and the EEA, so the rules for Norwegians and European citizens and people from EEA need to be the same. So complaining that EU students are not paying anything is just bs complaint, or do they want Norwegians to pay for their uni as well?
It would good if people from other countries could get a good education in Norway for free/ for cheap, but economically it doesn’t make sense. Why invest in people who come to Norway, the Norwegian taxpayers pay for them, and then they leave, paying very little in taxes to the welfare during their stay in the country.
Norway is a huge giver of aid to less privileged countries, which I think is great (and last I checked, most Norwegians agree).
Education is one of the most efficient ways, if not the most efficient way, of giving aid to less privileged countries (“teach a man to fish..”).
So it doesn’t seem like a great change. And I think the responses in this thread are not representative of Norway’s generally center/left-wing politics.
Absolutely awesome design on the pamphlet btw.
It might seem unreasonable that students should pay the actual costs of their education or at least pay something, but this would then match the situation in Sweden and Denmark that do the same. It most definitely would have consequences for the many students that would choose not to study here due to not having the funds. The fees that’s asked is the actual costs, it appears to me or less. It’s not that the government wants to benefit from this. It’s by the end of the day the Universities that want to have money to cover the costs of running the institutions, it doesn’t go into the pockets of the politicians. This is the bill that the universites gets per student per year and the money must come from somewhere. After all they need to pay the lecturers and all the stuff that comes with running a university. If there’s other ways to deal with this then I’m fine with that. Taken into consideration that Norway each year donates billions (44,3 billion Norwegian crowns for 2023) in aid to other countries abroad for different purposes, then regarded in that aspect Norway probably could keep taking the costs for its international students. But how about getting something in return from the countries they come from in other ways? Such as mutual deals and agreements one way or another. If they do then I’m really fine with that. Or should we just keep on giving and it being a one-way thing?
Free education as a principle is important. When we touch that principle, we won’t have free education. Mark my words, in a few years they’ll find a way to make Norwegians pay too.
I’m also for helping out people from other countries, better international relations and bringing more diversity to Norwegian universities.
I don’t understand why we should pay for the education of foreigners from outside the EEA. They’re not likely to stay here anyway.
You are going to another country and getting a degree, you pay for food and rent and if you decide to stay you improve the country with your skilled occupation. What is the problem here? Norway still has low crime so immigration isnt an issue and multiculturalism helps prevent racism. Some countries are better than others, going to a country to improve your life is pretty standard.
It’s in my nature to help others out, it brings me joy. This news is embarrassing to me. When I was a student I loved to hang out with students from far away corners of the world 🙁
My first thought is that there is a reason why that poster is in English, and not Norwegian.
My second thought is that there now will be less competition from asia and africa for the student spots my children will apply to in some years time.
I think we should be more strict with our immigration policies.
Which also applies to students.
Norwegian students have to pay tuition fee in many European universities, students from those countries should also pay.
Like, who the hell cares? I came from an overseas country and no-one ever gave me a free university degree. I had to work 2.5 days a week to cover my own tuition and lifestyle.
The money would be better spent sending students to university in their own countries with scholarships, and for a fraction of the cost.
Plus this should relieve some of the extreme pressure on student housing in Oslo.
I paid over twice as much as the british students when studying in England. But again, we Get pretty good student loan deals
i dont see anny reason why my tax money should go towards educating foreigners
I feel like I might get downvoted for this but as an international student who came here to study and now I’m currently working here full time and so are most of the international students I went to class with, I think this will effect the international culture in a lot of universities.
If you think about it – Norway is already pretty expensive country to live in. Foreign students on their student visas can only work 20 hours a week and on top of that you have to now pay such high tuition fee.
I feel like a lot of foreign students are rather gonna apply to universities in other countries where the living costs are way cheaper.
Well the Norwegian government needs the money to send it out as non-functional foreign aid into corrupt countries, for expensive “green” initiatives and to pay for having embassies and personell all over the world.
I mean, most Norwegians voted for higher taxes and more public spending, so this is in line with that. You will have to pay more and receive less, which is exactly what people wanted.
dette er en sak som kun norske statsborgere kan kommentere på ut ifra at det er våres penger som går til å utdanne internasjonale studenter.
En forandring eg hadde likt, hadde vært at staten matcher prisen i hjemlandet til den internasjonale studenten til våres slik at om en elev virkelig har lyst å studere i Norge så viser hen det ved å velge Norge selvom det koster like mye som i hjemlandet sitt, en annen ide kunne vært å gi støtte/gratis studieplass til elever som kommer fra land som gir støtte/gratis til Norske elever.
Where will i find my foreign gf now!:(
It’s really understandable that an idealistic principle meets the harsh economy environment and the slowly increasing conservatism that follows. Free education is indeed a noble and rare principle in today’s world but I still think for Norway in particular, attracting global talents with free education is the best way of spending the oil money (no you personal income tax is not what keeps this policy afloat).
What Norway really needs to do is to set a higher bar for admission because of this free offering, so that a top student with the qualifications to go to MIT would consider applying for Norwegian universities because of financial incentives.
It’s about time.
Just took a look at her IG and apparently she’s made this poster to argue her own case as now she can’t afford to study here anymore. There’s also a link to a change.org petition that is mostly signed by foreigners.
I get it; I would also love to get expensive things for free. And I’m sure she’s a lovely person and all her foreign student friends as well, and they’ve had a great time in Norway. But to say that she’s underprivileged and that charging tuition affects the least privileged is simply lies. The least privileged in her home country Brazil couldn’t even dream of going to Norway to study even if it was completely free. So free tuition in Norway would rather benefit the already privileged in Brazil. And now that’s taken away from her.
I posted some of this as a comment on a thread in here as well but it’s so long and I think this warrants a discussion of its own.
I just checked how much it would cost for a Canadian to do a master’s in geology at UiT, because that’s what I did before these fees were implemented. It’s 510 000 nok for the two years. For an international student to study the same thing at a similar university (Dalhousie University) would cost them only ca 165 000 nok for two years, and since Canadians have to pay some of that, a true comparison would be to just the extra fee for international students, so ca 55 000 nok. Additionally, many masters in Canada can be funded, meaning the tuition could be paid in whole or in part, by the project.
That means it is over 9 times more to come to Norway than to go to Canada as an international student. This is ridiculous!
I think charging international (non EEA) students something is fine, that’s the system I grew up with, but this amount?! No.
Also, to apply for a student visa, you have to say you intend to leave after your studies, so to all of you saying “they just take their free education and leave”, well, the leaving is encouraged…
42 comments
Least delusional art student
/s
I don’t think most people care. The only places I have seen that there has been resistance to this is in academic circles. Although foreign students make this a big deal, Norwegian students who want to study abroad have been affected by receiving less student aid now.
It would have been difficult to defend that people should receive free education in Norway, while Norwegian students should have less opportunity to study abroad. It is therefore not only international students who are affected by the new policy.
It is also difficult to defend that Norwegian taxpayers should pay for the education of students from countries that require payment from Norwegian students as well.
Well I don’t care. I can see it sucks for non EU/EEC students, but on the other hand now more Norwegians get accepted to university since now there’s fewer foreigners to compete with for a spot.
Basic needs in primary school, health care, birthing departments and more is all facing budget cuts, and those are for us who pay taxes.
I have zero fucks to give for a foreigner who wants a bachelor paid by Norwegian taxes.
Also, I’ve studied with quite a few freemovers, and they are not that sympathetic either, its usually ‘I just came for the free education, thanks and suck on this, tee hee’.
That the government the last 20-30 years has been making ever increasingly terrible choices. This is one of those
I think you have to be pretty narcissistic and disillusioned to think Norwegian taxpayers owes any non citizens anything. That’s my two cents. I’m not crying for any freeloaders, but especially not for those who think they are entitled to come here.
Oh my godddddd look at the comments here lmfao 🤩
why would tax payers in Norway have a problem if all the saved money goes back to the system to improve it further, this also means more cheaper student houses available to the tax payers.
also in the last thread we had about this someone pointed out most of the students leave the country after completing their studies.
If I go to the US, I pay for uni. It should be the same the other way
I don’t really care that much about it, but I think it is weird that it doesn’t count for European students.
You should give everyone free education, or only give Norwegian citizens free education. Everything else is discrimination.
As someone who isn’t a student anymore, I sadly don’t care too much about this anymore, but as a former international student I sympathise with the internationals who now are losing a fantastic opportunity to study pretty much at no cost other than the costs of living in Norway (can they work while here? If so they had a solution to that)
While I do understand and kinda agree with the fact that international students should pay something, there is two main problems with the current project/law:
1) the actual amount of fees. That is *A LOT*. Like for medicine and engineering, this is the same level of fees as Harvard and the other big names in US. I don’t think I need to precise that US is not an example of accessibility and fairness in education, so I would say this is a little high in my opinion for fees to study in Norway. Hear me right: international should pay some fees, but not 350k NOK per year… hva i helvete…
2) That may surprise some Norwegians here, but the Norwegian academia *NEEDS* international to survive. It’s not helping, it’s keeping it alive literally. Probably ~50% if not more of PhDs and post docs are internationals currently in Norway. That is A LOT of you compare to the average of other countries. Norway academia is too small to only survive from Norwegian students, and norwegians are mostly not interested in pursuing graduate studies like a PhD. Again, I know PhDs and post docs are not students and won’t pay these fees, but a not negligible amount of these also did their masters in Norway beforehand. Now, you remove 90-95% of these candidates, research in Norway will be affected.
edit: typo
I feel for the international students, i really do, but in the end its our tax funds which pays for this, and i’d rather the govt. cut spending on this than on elder care or health care.
Consequences part is utter bullshit. But this whole poster reeks of shit.
Public/state education is a scam. Unless you’re gonna be a doctor or lawyer.
Lol talk about fear mongers. Is it Norway’s job to educate the world? I don’t think so.
even if they wanted to add tuition fee rule, they had to give it more time. Many international students who applied didn’t receive any answer from the universities even though they had to receive it mid April. The delay is because the Norwegian government still didn’t approve it.
I don’t see why Norway should be the only idealist country when everyone else is charging.
I’m not Norwegian but agree with that non-eu citizens have to pay to study here. Many international students I know have no interest in living in Norway after they have completed their studies.
I don’t get it – was it ever free for people in general outside the EU/EEA to study in Norway? That must have been only through the institutions’ approved exchange programs, no?
I went on an exchange program outside the EU when I was studying at the University of Oslo, didn’t have to pay fee, because there was an exchange agreement with a US university, so US students got to go to Norway for free as well on that program. Is it those kinds of agreements they’re doing away with?
Not that I’d say the US is an “underprivileged” country, as the poster mentions…
I’m not well informed to have a opinion on the subject. However I wloud like to see the number of foreign students who opt to stay in the country out of total amount of foreign students
Well, I understand the message but the premise is wrong. Even tho Norway is not in the EU it is still in Schengen and the EEA, so the rules for Norwegians and European citizens and people from EEA need to be the same. So complaining that EU students are not paying anything is just bs complaint, or do they want Norwegians to pay for their uni as well?
It would good if people from other countries could get a good education in Norway for free/ for cheap, but economically it doesn’t make sense. Why invest in people who come to Norway, the Norwegian taxpayers pay for them, and then they leave, paying very little in taxes to the welfare during their stay in the country.
Norway is a huge giver of aid to less privileged countries, which I think is great (and last I checked, most Norwegians agree).
Education is one of the most efficient ways, if not the most efficient way, of giving aid to less privileged countries (“teach a man to fish..”).
So it doesn’t seem like a great change. And I think the responses in this thread are not representative of Norway’s generally center/left-wing politics.
Absolutely awesome design on the pamphlet btw.
It might seem unreasonable that students should pay the actual costs of their education or at least pay something, but this would then match the situation in Sweden and Denmark that do the same. It most definitely would have consequences for the many students that would choose not to study here due to not having the funds. The fees that’s asked is the actual costs, it appears to me or less. It’s not that the government wants to benefit from this. It’s by the end of the day the Universities that want to have money to cover the costs of running the institutions, it doesn’t go into the pockets of the politicians. This is the bill that the universites gets per student per year and the money must come from somewhere. After all they need to pay the lecturers and all the stuff that comes with running a university. If there’s other ways to deal with this then I’m fine with that. Taken into consideration that Norway each year donates billions (44,3 billion Norwegian crowns for 2023) in aid to other countries abroad for different purposes, then regarded in that aspect Norway probably could keep taking the costs for its international students. But how about getting something in return from the countries they come from in other ways? Such as mutual deals and agreements one way or another. If they do then I’m really fine with that. Or should we just keep on giving and it being a one-way thing?
Free education as a principle is important. When we touch that principle, we won’t have free education. Mark my words, in a few years they’ll find a way to make Norwegians pay too.
I’m also for helping out people from other countries, better international relations and bringing more diversity to Norwegian universities.
I don’t understand why we should pay for the education of foreigners from outside the EEA. They’re not likely to stay here anyway.
You are going to another country and getting a degree, you pay for food and rent and if you decide to stay you improve the country with your skilled occupation. What is the problem here? Norway still has low crime so immigration isnt an issue and multiculturalism helps prevent racism. Some countries are better than others, going to a country to improve your life is pretty standard.
It’s in my nature to help others out, it brings me joy. This news is embarrassing to me. When I was a student I loved to hang out with students from far away corners of the world 🙁
My first thought is that there is a reason why that poster is in English, and not Norwegian.
My second thought is that there now will be less competition from asia and africa for the student spots my children will apply to in some years time.
I think we should be more strict with our immigration policies.
Which also applies to students.
Norwegian students have to pay tuition fee in many European universities, students from those countries should also pay.
Like, who the hell cares? I came from an overseas country and no-one ever gave me a free university degree. I had to work 2.5 days a week to cover my own tuition and lifestyle.
The money would be better spent sending students to university in their own countries with scholarships, and for a fraction of the cost.
Plus this should relieve some of the extreme pressure on student housing in Oslo.
I paid over twice as much as the british students when studying in England. But again, we Get pretty good student loan deals
i dont see anny reason why my tax money should go towards educating foreigners
I feel like I might get downvoted for this but as an international student who came here to study and now I’m currently working here full time and so are most of the international students I went to class with, I think this will effect the international culture in a lot of universities.
If you think about it – Norway is already pretty expensive country to live in. Foreign students on their student visas can only work 20 hours a week and on top of that you have to now pay such high tuition fee.
I feel like a lot of foreign students are rather gonna apply to universities in other countries where the living costs are way cheaper.
Well the Norwegian government needs the money to send it out as non-functional foreign aid into corrupt countries, for expensive “green” initiatives and to pay for having embassies and personell all over the world.
I mean, most Norwegians voted for higher taxes and more public spending, so this is in line with that. You will have to pay more and receive less, which is exactly what people wanted.
dette er en sak som kun norske statsborgere kan kommentere på ut ifra at det er våres penger som går til å utdanne internasjonale studenter.
En forandring eg hadde likt, hadde vært at staten matcher prisen i hjemlandet til den internasjonale studenten til våres slik at om en elev virkelig har lyst å studere i Norge så viser hen det ved å velge Norge selvom det koster like mye som i hjemlandet sitt, en annen ide kunne vært å gi støtte/gratis studieplass til elever som kommer fra land som gir støtte/gratis til Norske elever.
Where will i find my foreign gf now!:(
It’s really understandable that an idealistic principle meets the harsh economy environment and the slowly increasing conservatism that follows. Free education is indeed a noble and rare principle in today’s world but I still think for Norway in particular, attracting global talents with free education is the best way of spending the oil money (no you personal income tax is not what keeps this policy afloat).
What Norway really needs to do is to set a higher bar for admission because of this free offering, so that a top student with the qualifications to go to MIT would consider applying for Norwegian universities because of financial incentives.
It’s about time.
Just took a look at her IG and apparently she’s made this poster to argue her own case as now she can’t afford to study here anymore. There’s also a link to a change.org petition that is mostly signed by foreigners.
I get it; I would also love to get expensive things for free. And I’m sure she’s a lovely person and all her foreign student friends as well, and they’ve had a great time in Norway. But to say that she’s underprivileged and that charging tuition affects the least privileged is simply lies. The least privileged in her home country Brazil couldn’t even dream of going to Norway to study even if it was completely free. So free tuition in Norway would rather benefit the already privileged in Brazil. And now that’s taken away from her.
I posted some of this as a comment on a thread in here as well but it’s so long and I think this warrants a discussion of its own.
I just checked how much it would cost for a Canadian to do a master’s in geology at UiT, because that’s what I did before these fees were implemented. It’s 510 000 nok for the two years. For an international student to study the same thing at a similar university (Dalhousie University) would cost them only ca 165 000 nok for two years, and since Canadians have to pay some of that, a true comparison would be to just the extra fee for international students, so ca 55 000 nok. Additionally, many masters in Canada can be funded, meaning the tuition could be paid in whole or in part, by the project.
That means it is over 9 times more to come to Norway than to go to Canada as an international student. This is ridiculous!
I think charging international (non EEA) students something is fine, that’s the system I grew up with, but this amount?! No.
Also, to apply for a student visa, you have to say you intend to leave after your studies, so to all of you saying “they just take their free education and leave”, well, the leaving is encouraged…