Tuition fee for non-European students in Norway:
Unfair and a threat to education quality
Associate Professor Poul Wisborg, Programme Leader, Master in Global Development Studies, Noragric, NMBU
‘We find it hard to appreciate a benefit that is not equally accessible to everybody’, a Norwegian woman once said to express what she saw as the meaning of Nordic social democracy. The Norwegian government is now asking students and educators to put aside that sentiment and principle.
In Norway, university education is generally free. However, in its recently announced state budget, the coalition government of the Labour (Ap) and Centre Party (Sp) has proposed introducing tuition fees for students from outside Europe starting in 2023. The proposal is on a public consultation until 7 December 2022. It anticipates an annual fee of around 130.000 Kroner (currently about 13.000 Euros) applicable to foreign students – so called “third country” students, about 8.600 individuals in 2020 – who are not from the European Union/Economic Area (with which Norway has entered non-discrimination agreements). Also included is a new rule that private institutions which receive public funding may not use this funding to educate students from the same category of countries.
The government anticipates that the number of students coming from the affected countries will drop by about seventy percent, and presents this as an economic win for universities, as they will save the costs of these study places while the state offers to reduce its transfer to universities by less than the expected savings. Still, the Government calculates state savings – from excluding about 6.000 students (70% of 8.600) – to be about 300 million kroner per year from 2025. This is equivalent to 0,5 percent of the 2023 budget for research and higher education of 57 billion (mrd.) kroner.
This proposal is unjust because it worsens the problem of unequal global access to higher education. It reflects and exacerbates discrimination because it disproportionally disadvantages students from the global South – Africa, Asia and Latin America – whose students are both excluded and generally have less economic opportunities for funding their higher education here or elsewhere. The government fails to even consider the way this worsens racial disadvantage in access to higher education. It will also harm the quality of higher education in Norway in numerous ways, because of the loss of diversity of views and competence in the classroom and the future networks or employment that these attractive students will be able to engage in.
The Norwegian proposal flies in the face of global and national commitments to change a starkly unequal world in the direction of equal access to higher education. UNESCO has reported a positive trend in the global access to higher education in recent decades, with the gross enrolment ratio (GER) increasing from 19% in 2000 to 38% in 2018 (Figure 1). However, this covers stark inequalities in access to higher education between regions: It is 77% in Europe and North America, 73% in Oceania and 52% in Latin America. However, in Central and South Asia, enrolment increased from 9% to 26% in the same period, and in sub-Saharan Africa from only 4% to 9%. So, in these regions only between a quarter and one tenth of young people, respectively, get higher education – and they will be most severely harmed by the introduction of tuition fees.
Figure 1: Access to higher education (gross enrolment ratio, GER) 2000–2018 in all regions
Source: UNESCO IESALC report Towards Universal Access to Higher Education: International Trends (UNESCO International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean, IESALC, 2020)
So, access to education differs between the poorest countries and the wealthiest by a factor of close to eight in 2018 (10% versus 77%). The correlation between income and access to education is strong: the poorer a region, country, class or family, the greater the impact of removing tuition-free higher education. Furthermore, access to all levels of education are likely to have worsened in the current cost of living crisis, particularly in poorer parts of the world. Therefore, the severest impact will follow racial lines, particularly affecting African and Asian students living in countries that carry the disadvantage of past colonization and exploitation.
From the global South, mainly wealthy elites will be able to afford the anticipated tuition fee of 130.000 to 135.000 kroner per year, about 11.000 kroner per month. The tuition fee is about three times the average lecturer’s salary in Nepal (some 3.800 kroner per month) or two and a half times and average teacher’s salary in Ghana of 4.200 kroner. Considering one of the most unequal countries of the world, Brazil, it may be affordable for the top ten percent who make an average of 71.000 kroner per month but not for the bottom 50%, where the average salary is 2.400 kroner (Statista).
Defending the proposal, Minister for Higher Education and Research Ola Borten Moe argued that it is unfair that Norwegian students pay tuition fees abroad while students from the same countries don’t pay for tuition in Norway. This is a contractual logic that assumes a just world with a level playing field, where all have similar resources and opportunities. It is not the world we actually live in, and therefore the proposal and the Minister’s justification are blind to massive inequalities of geography, race and class. Politically, the proposal departs from the ideals of social democracy and the world that Norway has committed to changing through, among others, honouring human rights (Universal Declaration, Article 26.1: “higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit») and the Sustainable Development Goals, which includes the target to, “By 2030, ensure equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university.”
Tuition fees threaten education in global class rooms. For our Department at NMBU, and for us as educators, this is a both an academic threat and an emotional issue. We lead and teach in international programmes that aspire to create global classrooms. Facing the students daily, we know that many of them (seven out of ten from the affected regions, as our government thinks) would be missing in a future scenario with the proposed 130.000 kroner tuition fee. As Nisha Jha (25) from Nepal told NRK, she would not have been able to do her Master in International Environmental Studies at NMBU, had the tuition fee been applied to her. Chikeluba from Nigeria, a first-year Global Development Studies student, said if he had made it to Norway, he would have had to work much longer hours to sustain himself, and his studies would suffer. We know that those students from the global South who might still make it here would be much more likely to have an elite background, affecting what knowledge and perspectives they are able to contribute to the rest of the class. Our International Relations programme would become less global in outlook. Most painful would be facing a class where some, on the basis of origin, have been forced to pay the equivalent of several annual wages in their home countries for the position as a bachelor or master student in Norway. Teaching development and human rights – non-discrimination and the equal worth and rights of everyone – my words would ring hollow in this scenario, and I would also have to ask students to disregard this systemic and avoidable discrimination when co-operating in learning.
Our Global Development Studies will no longer be global. I currently lead our Master in Global Development Studies, which in 2021 got accreditation from the International Accreditation Council for Global Development Studies and Research. One of the criteria was our very diverse body of students. During 2006 to 2019, the programme had 264 students with recorded nationalities, representing 40 countries and 6 continents. At the same time, students from Norway made up a majority (60%) (Figure 2). This reflects an interest in studying in a diverse academic environment, including by a number of Norwegians who have an international background. The second largest group was Africans with 16%, other European nations (11%) and Asia (10%). Thus, while representation is noticeable, it is also clear that even this globally oriented programme does not have a strong representation of the whole world, with Latin America, North America and Oceania each being below 2%. At the northern margin of Europe, with a small language, high cost of living and a harsh climate, Norway is not first choice for most of the world’s prospective students. The Government seems oblivious to the major loss Norway will suffer by not attracting students that become future partners and networks.
Figure 2: Students at Noragric’s Global Development Studies Master Pre and Post Tuition Fee
Source: Noragric M-GDS accreditation report 2020: Student numbers during 2006 to 2019. The projected change in student numbers after the introduction of tuition fees (from 264 to 210 students in total) is based on the Norwegian government projection of a 70% reduction in students from affected countries, while the number from other countries is assumed constant.
The actual impact of a tuition fee is quite unpredictable, but we generally agree with the government that it would be dramatic for Norwegian universities in general and for international education programmes in particular. In the example of Global Development Studies (Figure 2), African representation would shrink from 16% to 6% and Asian from 9% to 3%. While not representative for Norway at large, it is still striking that of the 54 students expected to be excluded due to the higher cost, 50 (or 93%) come from the global South (Africa 30, Asia 17, Latin America 3), while 3 come from North America and 1 from Oceania. This supports the claim that the policy proposal is geographically and racially discriminatory.
In reality, the effect could be even more severe, because 70% is an average estimate, and the impact would worsen with the poverty of a country or region. Personally, I think students from neither the countries in the global South nor in the North would apply, whether excluded by the cost or just incentivised to study in more accessible countries (due to language, cost, culture and location). Therefore, we may also find that European student numbers (which I assumed constant in the figure above) would actually decline, because we can no longer offer the global classroom they are searching: It has evidently been wiped out in scenario two above, since 90% of students would now come from the global North, and 89% from Europe alone.
Therefore, Norway’s proposed introduction of tuition fee for non-European students is an injustice to those excluded from education and one that would severely reduce the international quality of higher education in Norway. It is neither ethically, socially nor financially sustainable and will severely harm international programmes aspiring to work across cultures on global challenges. The country will lose goodwill and miss this chance to contribute to the development of graduates and their countries. Norway will also lose a competitive advantage, because foreign students bring unique talent and competence and go on to become valuable contacts abroad or, in some cases, highly sought after staff in Norwegian institutions. These graduates are vital for continued collaboration in education and research and the networks and competencies to address global challenges – together.
Norway ought to rather maintain its laudable system of tuition-free higher education and use it as a platform for advocating expanded access to higher education globally, honouring the human right to non-discrimination and the Sustainable Development Goal target about securing equal access to higher education by 2030. We should protect and enhance the ability of students and staff to enjoy and offer education on an equal basis, not create classrooms of exclusion and disparity.
Universitetstunet 3
1430 Ås, Norway
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Universitetstunet 3
1430 Ås, Norway
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