Moi, Kaikki!
*Haluan opiskella Suomessa ensi vuonna*, but that’s as good as my Finnish goes. I’m from a Non-EU Country, a rather ^(köyhä) one, and I want to pursue an undergraduate degree in Finland to help me get into better job markets.
*Olen Todella Pahoillani* for the very long post ahead.
The problem is, I earn only roughly 8,190 EUR in a year (even as a Certified Public Accountant with 2 years of experience) and I’ve saved up roughly 3,000 EUR.
University tuition fees costs anywhere from 6,000 EUR to 12,000 EUR per year, and with a cost-of-living requirement of 6,720 EUR a year, that would mean I should budget around…
47,200 EUR total for a three-year program, which is 5x what I earn, and that’s a pretty hefty sum. However, my other options including the Netherlands, AU, NZ, and the US easily cost twice more than that.
I’ve been lurking in this sub for a while, and I’ve seen some mixed responses about Immigrants and Foreign Students. I swear I’m not going to be the type of immigrant that will be leaching off Finnish welfare or anything like that.
That aside, I just want to ask a few questions regarding Finnish Universities and scholarships:
1. I tried to study Finnish so I could eventually enroll in a Finnish program tuition-free (that’s a thing right?), but is 1 year is a long enough time to be able to understand a whole program in Finnish? It’s not like the Finnish I learned was in vain though, as it would help me converse and understand Finns and your culture.
2. There are also Swedish programs that are tuition-free, this one seems more doable as I’m making a little more progress in Swedish / Norwegian than I am in learning Finnish. Is this something that foreign students have done before (successfully)? Are these “scholarships” granted often or is there like a really long waitlist for this?
3. Option 3 is to enroll in an English program and hope for the best. I’ve read up on [migri.fi](https://migri.fi) and [studyinfinland.fi](https://studyinfinland.fi) and (correct me if I’m wrong) technically only the first year of tuition and cost-of-living allowance of 6,720 is required. 16,000 EUR might still be a lot but it’s achievable, but I’m kind of worried that the rest of the 30,000 EUR or so is not achievable even with the whole 30H/wk part time work. Are there any Non-EU foreign students here who can share their opinion on this?
4. I’ve also read up that there are scholarship grants that go from 20% – 50% of your tuition, and this is the part where I get confused. These are only offered in the 2nd year right (based on your first year’s grades I presume?).
I’ve checked a couple of scholarship programs offered (by University of Helsinki and University of Tampere) and I’ve only found Master’s programs so far. In theory, I’ve already finished my undergraduate program (in accountancy) as a *Magna Cum Laude* but I’ve been told our country’s graduates don’t pass the “global standards” so I pretty much have to take up an undergraduate program again if I were to study abroad.
Kiitos Paljon / Tack så mycket!
by CupRegular3709