To charge or not to charge international students? This has been a recurring question for European countries over the last decade. Many are working out how to pay the increasing costs of higher education and compete effectively in a global market.
Most on the continent now have some kind of fees structure, ranging from the minimal in Germany at around £509 per year, to maximal in the UK at about £10,000. Perhaps the most telling sign of things to come is that countries such as Denmark and Finland have broken with egalitarian tradition in the last few years by levying those from outside the EU.
Continuing this pattern is Sweden, which started charging non-EU students this autumn to help its HE system compete with its European counterparts on equal terms, and to become more attractive abroad. The move was a bold show of confidence in Swedish HE, which observers say free tuition had tarnished by perpetuating a economical rather than high quality image.
However, it was clumsily implemented. Not only are the new fees among the highest in Europe, ranging from 80,000-140,000 SEK per year (£7,500–£13,200), but they also come with one of the most expensiv,e application fees in the world – a non-refundable 900 SEK (£85). Universities were also only told about the fees in October last year, giving them little time to prepare.
As a result, international recruitment plummeted from 8,000 in 2009-10 (about 6% of tertiary enrolments) to 1,400 – a fall of 60%. This was a heavy blow for universities which have filled their master’s programmes with international students for years. “Our campus is 25%, or 30% even, international students. This is a dramatic thing for us,” says Per Bergland, the Vice Dean of KTH, Royal Institute for Technology in Stockholm, one of Sweden’s leading research-focused universities. The university saw international numbers fall from 4,000 to 3,000 and has been forced to merge its international master’s programmes with the final years of its undergraduate courses.
“With this kind of money, maybe I would go to the United States”
However, Berglund, like many, sees that losses may be a necessary price to pay for a more competitive sector. “We are supposed to compete with quality and we will compete with quality. But it will take some time for people to realise this.”
The same applies at Sweden’s oldest university, Uppsala. Gabriella Hernqvist, International Relations Officer, laments the drop in numbers which has threatened courses and the quality of research, saying, “It will probably take us years and years to get back to the figures we used to have.” However, she adds, it will be worth it in the end if quality is driven up.
“The environment is awesome… I personally feel I’ve made the right choice”
The international students that talked to the PIE News were divided over the matter. One Chinese master’s student at Karolinska Institute, a world-leading medical university in Stockholm, said she had chosen the university because of both the course and the free tuition. Asked whether she would have paid the new fees, she said: “I checked online and saw that it was quite a lot. With this kind of money maybe I would go to the United States.” For others, perks like small class sizes and generous post-study work rights made Sweden preferable to the US and UK. “The environment is awesome… I personally feel I’ve made the right choice,” said a master’s student from India at Uppsala.
With fees on par with much larger study destinations such as the UK and Australia, Sweden will have to work hard to communicate what makes its special. Luckily its attributes are many. Most international programmes are taught in English – hard to find in the majority of European destinations – and its rules on studying during and after a degree are flexible compared with many countries.
The country is also a well known innovation hub. Universities like Lund, Uppsala and KTH produce world leading research in areas like biotechnology and engineering, while a symbiotic relationship exists between academia and the private sector which has nurtured homegrown brands such as Ericsson, Scania and Volvo in the past.
Innovation also influences teaching methods, with self study and creative thinking strongly encouraged at university. Such out-of-box thinking applies to the student experience as well, or what some refer to as the “positive difference” in Swedish culture, where a strong record of human rights and environmental sustainability, plus low crime rates have helped the country top international quality of life rankings.
Lund University avoided losses via a pre-emptive marketing campaign
The challenge now is how to market such qualities – something Sweden’s universities have never seriously had to do given the appeal of free tuition. Universities have already launched major campaigns across social media and traditional channels, but these will take time to bear fruit, not to mention cost money. While Lund University avoided the losses seen at other universities through pre-emptive marketing, Richard Stenelo, Head of International Marketing, says: “We have a long way to go before we are anywhere near American, Australian or British universities in terms of marketing.”
The challenge now is how to market such qualities
Others say expanding scholarship schemes will be key. A government scholarship scheme predicted to mitigate this year’s fall in recruitment in the end misfired, with only 105 scholarships awarded following 7,026 applications. While the government promises to rectify this next year, some universities feel that they will have to seek private sector support. A new approach could stretch to public-private partnerships or the increased use of recruitment agents, until now quite rare in Sweden.
Whether Sweden can pull its figures back remains to be seen. Viewed pessimistically, things could go the way of Denmark, which four years after introducing fees is still around 40% short of previous recruitment levels. However, those in the Swedish sector remain hopeful. Niklas Tranaeus, Manager of the Study in Sweden campaign at Swedish Institute, says it is difficult to make predictions, but that “some of the loss will be compensated by recruiting in the EU, possibly also from the UK… Some institutions are likely to return to their previous levels of international students within a few years.”
