Stakeholders feel sting of tuition fees for non-EU students

The CEO of Electronic Coast, an independent industry association and competence cluster that works with arena and network building, has said the introduction of tuition fees for students from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) is casting a dark shadow over the region’s access to highly qualified manpower.

In an article in Laagendalsposten, a major newspaper in the Kongsberg region in Eastern Norway, Linn Fagerberg, who is also the project manager for Technology Triangle consisting of the University of Southeast Norway, the Electronic Coast cluster, powered by Telemark, and the Kongsberg Technology Cluster, said the government’s argument for introducing tuition fees for non-EEA students did not take into consideration the need to “sustain an international presence and exchange of competence”.

Fagerberg’s article, published on 11 February, was one of several articles criticising the government fee policy that have appeared in the Norwegian press over the last few months.

She wrote: “The highest tuition fees for a masters degree have after the introduction increased to almost NOK1 million [US$96 000] and this is creating a barrier for international students who want to contribute to the region’s growth and innovation.”

Threats to workforce

Fagerberg claimed tuition fees now threaten the availability of a competent workforce, notably for engineering, and that this threat is particularly strong for the 26,000-strong workforce in the technology triangle of Porsgrunn, Kongsberg and Horten that constitute the most important technology region in Norway.

Fagerberg stated that an investigation by Menon Economics found there was a need for up to 6,000 new engineers for battery, hydrogen and ocean wind businesses in the build-up to 2030. The recommendations of the investigation included increased cooperation between business and universities and recruitment of workforce personnel from abroad.

“Such actions are decisive to secure technological innovation. The experiences in Germany of dropping tuition fees for international students in Baden- Württemberg should be noted in Norway. Collective action is now needed to secure a diverse and competent workforce for the future of the region,” Fagerberg wrote.

“The technology triangle is explicit on the stand that in a time when access to a qualified workforce is decisive for technological innovation, it is necessary to re-evaluate the path now chosen [to demand tuition fees for international students from outside Europe].

“The companies are losing talent. They are also losing the diversity and needed competence that international students bring. This can again result in a gap in technological innovation that is contrary to the region’s ambition to be a global leader within technology and science,” Fagerberg wrote.

In comments to University World News Fagerberg said: “The students that come to Norway [from the Global South] to take a two-year masters degree have had 15 years of education paid for by their home country.

“We are investing two years on a masters degree and get access to motivated and good experts notably within technological fields where we have problems in motivating and recruiting young Norwegians.

“The business world is losing out on good technological experts and are ending up outsourcing technology development to other countries because we cannot manage to get the right competence in Norway. This is not the right way to build Norway.”

Negative impact on universities

The impact of the fee policy on universities was the subject of a recent in-depth article by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) which set out the economic losses suffered by institutions in 2023 and 2024 and the likelihood of programme closures as a result of declining numbers of students.

According to figures published by NRK, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) has suffered the highest cut of NOK50 million over the 2023 to 2024 period, while the University of South-Eastern Norway (USN) suffered a cut of NOK 20 million in 2024, and the University of Bergen saw a total cut of NOK26 million per year.

According to the article, Oslo Met suffered no economic consequences since the “university is filling up the courses with students from the European Union and EEA”.

Sunniva Whittaker, rector of the University of Agder, which reported cuts of NOK7.7 million, told NRK she hoped that the grants made available for up to 200 students from outside Europe will make up for some of the cuts. “But these will not cover all the cuts we have had in our budgets. And this means that the universities’ economics and room for action is permanently reduced”, she is quoted as saying.

According to the NRK report, NTNU said the institution had 49 masters students from outside the EU-EEA and Switzerland at the autumn term, 22 of which were paying tuition fees while 27 have been exempted.

“This is 183 fewer students than in 2022-23. Now we have only managed to fill 60% of the available masters degree study places, meaning that NTNU for 2024-25 will offer 31 masters degrees taught in English compared to 54 the year before. For some of the milieus that traditionally have had many international students this will be a huge economic loss,” the NTNU is reported to have said.

“Access of international talents and network building across countries and continents have been a great comparative advantage, in many ways a win-win situation,” NTNU said. “It is very regrettable that this possibility now is severely reduced,” NTNU added.

The situation for the University of Bergen (UiB) also looks bleak. The UiB reported to its board on 7 March 2024 that before the introduction of tuition fees UiB had up to 4,000 applications each year from students from those countries now having to pay tuition fees.

“For 2023-24 UiB received 3,478 applications for a study place at the masters degree. [A total of] 981 of these said that they were willing to pay tuition fees and 181 were offered a study place where 80 of these confirmed that they would accept the place,” the report stated.

“14 of these paid the tuition fees and met at the start of the term. In addition some students were exempted, so that 36 students from countries outside Europe met at the start of the term compared to 110 in 2022,” the report added.

‘No surprise’

The negative impacts of the introduction of tuition fees have come as no surprise to academic leaders in Norway.

Professor Klaus Mohn, rector of the University of Stavanger, told University World News: “The University of Stavanger has continuously emphasised the consequences for Norwegian business due to the introduction of tuition fees for international students outside of the EU.

“It comes as no surprise for UiS that tuition fees have led to far fewer international students, which in turn means a reduction of highly qualified graduates for Norwegian businesses.”

Professor Ole Petter Ottersen, former rector of the University of Oslo and of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, and now acting secretary-general of the Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities in Brussels, said: “It was a great mistake to introduce tuition fees without a thorough cost-benefit analysis and without taking the overall picture into consideration.

“Tuition fees are about much more than economics and not least about the quality in higher education which is dependent on perspectives from the Global South,” he told University World News.

“These perspectives are needed more than ever in a time when we are confronted with multiple challenges that are global in character. The introduction of tuition fees is part of a pattern in political decisions that are breaking with the solidarity that Norway has been known for,” he explained.