Kela asks 13,200 higher students for details

The national social insurance institution Kela asked 13,200 higher education students, who did not meet the minimum credit requirement for financial aid, to provide with further information regarding their academic progress by October 25.

The request for information was sent to 7,500 university students and 5,700 students of universities of applied sciences, according to a Kela press release issued on Tuesday.

Last year, a total of 15,000 students received the request, 9,650 of whom attended a university and 5,350 a university of applied sciences.

The academic progress of students in higher education is assessed on the basis of financial aid data and information about the number of credits they have earned.

The assessment focuses both on the academic year 2018-2019 and the entire time that a student has pursued higher education studies in Finland.

Kela assesses academic progress in accordance with the requirements set out in the legislation on student financial aid.

The academic progress has been sufficient if the student has earned at least 20 credits in the previous academic year and on average at least five credits for each month of financial aid.

The requirement of 20 credits earned does not apply to any academic year in which the student either completed a higher education degree or began a course of higher education during the spring term.

Kela considers whether there are acceptable reasons for the unsatisfactory academic progress. Financial aid payments to students who do not reply or whose reasons are not accepted will be stopped effective 1 January 2020.

The assessment of academic progress takes into account all credits earned at Finnish institutes of higher education and the number of months of financial aid since 1 August 2011.

The academic progress of students who have graduated with a higher education degree and who continue studies in higher education is assessed for the period following the month of graduation.

The assessment has now been carried out for around 130,000 higher education students who received financial aid in the academic year 2018-2019.

The number of requests for information sent to university students decreased from last year. This year, fewer requests for information were sent to students who have taken a Bachelor’s level degree since the manner of assessing academic progress was changed.