Finland ups HE target to 60 per cent after years of lagging behind

Finland wants to raise its share of young people with a university degree to 60 per cent by 2040, up from the current 39 per cent, but sceptics say achieving the target has not been thought through.

The country was a leader in higher education attainment in the early 2000s, but now Finland’s proportion of 25- to 34-year-olds with a degree sits well below the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) average of 48 per cent.

Finland is one of only six OECD and partner countries to have experienced a decline in attainment in this age group, according to an OECD report in 2025.

The new target is part of a broader long-term “vision” published by the Finnish government setting out its goals for the sector over the next 14 years. It is the second initiative of its kind, following one published in 2017 that aimed for 50 per cent by 2030, which the country is still far from achieving.

Heikki Holopainen, executive director of the Council of Rectors of Finnish Universities (Unifi), who worked closely with the government to shape the vision, said he believed that the 60 per cent target was achievable with the right resources because universities have previously proved capable of ramping up their student intake. After the Covid-19 pandemic, the government invested millions in funding extra places over three years, and universities delivered. But the funding did not last.

“While the number of students accepted has stayed at that level, the funding has stopped. This is something that universities are struggling with a lot,” Holopainen said.

He added that the government had been “hesitant” to commit to extra funding ahead of next year’s elections and called for a group to be created within parliament that could agree on what needs to be done to reach the target.

“They should look into what’s acceptable for different political parties so that priorities don’t change every time the government changes,” he added.

Universities are also concerned about the impact of rising student numbers on quality. Holopainen explained that a significant number of students in Finland were pursuing second, third or even fourth degrees. “Should we be able to provide better routes for those students so they don’t take places from those who don’t even have a first degree yet?” he said. “The discussion on whether there should be tuition fees for further degrees has entered political debate.”

Marjo Kaartinen, rector of the University of Turku, said the 60 per cent target was achievable but “strong measures” were needed to meet the goal. “What we need is a very high number of international students compared with the present situation, who also will want to settle in Finland after they graduate,” she said. “This alone is very difficult to achieve.”

She said another issue was that many school-leavers end up not pursuing a degree despite expressing strong interest in doing so. In Finland, the transition from secondary school to university can take two to four years because of a selective admissions process that includes entrance exams, a preference for gap years, and mandatary military service.

The average age of new entrants in tertiary education is 24, while the average age of bachelor’s graduates is among the oldest in the OECD at 27.

“What we should first do is increase the number of study places to dissolve the jam at the entry point for young school graduates,” Kaartinen said. “There are a great number of study places, but too many of them go to people other than fresh high school graduates.”

Johanna Kallo, a professor of higher education at the University of Turku, said hitting the 60 per cent target was “theoretically possible if several factors align” although unlikely in reality, adding that the government’s plan offered “little information” about how it would be achieved.

Finland would have to increase the number of study places, dedicate significant financial investment, reform its selective admissions process, and offer more support for vocational education, where recent budget cuts have reduced the number of graduates continuing to higher education, Kallo explained.

She attributed the decline in higher education attainment over the years to concerns about “over-education”.

“This view of over-education gained prominence around the 2010s,” she said. “It reflected a short-term approach that prioritised immediate labour market demands.”

“The resulting policy decisions constrained the expansion of higher education provision in Finland, whereas other Nordic and OECD countries have expanded the provision,” she said.