News in English

Candidates well aware of the small amount of study grant

The majority of the parliamentary candidates of Pirkanmaa have at least a general idea about how much money students are expected to make do with. Aviisi phoned 126 Pirkanmaa parliamentary candidates to ask if they knew how big a study grant a university student receives per month. Their guesses averaged at 281 euros, a couple of dozen euros more than the actual grant. A university studentÂ’s study grant is 259 euros a month.

National Coalition Party candidate, Hannu Laholuoma, gave the smallest amount. “It cannot be more than a few dozen euros", he guessed. Kalervo Tuominen of Senioripuolue (senior citizens’ party) represented the opposite extreme with his guess of 550 euros. Several candidates seemed to be puzzled by the other forms of student benefits - the housing supplement and the study loan - but no one was given any more information before they answered the question.

The most drastic overestimations came from the candidates of Senioripuolue, who might not be, for completely natural reasons, in immediate touch with student life.
After being given the right answer, several respondents wondered how students actually manage to make ends meet.

Aviisi got the idea for the query from the Helsinki student newspaper Ylioppilaslehti, which exposed the Minister of Finance, Eero HeinäluomaÂ’s, ignorance on student benefits. The minister was surprised to hear that the housing supplement is included in the maximum student benefit of 760 euros.

Parties promise raise in study grant

A raise in the study grant seems finally guaranteed. All parties have directly stated that they will demand a 15% raise in the study grant early next year.

The opposition parties have already been supporting the raise for a long time, but now the government partiesÂ’ leaders too are clearly backing it up.

"After these promises, it will be impossible to postpone the raise by any kind of manipulation", says Lasse Männistö, the president of the National Union of University Students in Finland (SYL).

University and polytechnic studentsÂ’ study grant has not been raised for 15 years - in fact, it was cut in 1995. Meanwhile, the real value of the study grant has fallen by 20 percent.

Translations: Varpu Jutila