The average amount of university-level student loans among people carrying student debt has more than doubled since the beginning of the 2010s, according to Kela, the Social Insurance Institution of Finland.
According to the agency, the average level of student loans in the 2010-11 academic year stood at around 5,000 euros, while in 2024-25 the average loan amount was 12,700 euros.
Heta Moustgaard, a senior researcher at Kela, said in a press release that students are taking out more loans than they used to, while student grants don't have the purchasing power they once had.
As a result, she said that students seem to be increasingly relying on loans rather than grants or student benefits.
Last year, around two-thirds of university graduates had student loans at the end of their final semester.
According to the benefits agency, the number of student loans increased every year from 2014 until 2022, but in 2023 the figure began to decline. The following year saw a one-percent decrease in student loans compared to 2023.
Finnish universities of applied sciences and universities do not generally charge tuition fees for studies toward a degree in Finnish or Swedish, or for students from within the EU/EEA area and Switzerland.
