Foreign students: a step forward, a step backward...

The rumors about charging tuition from foreign students are in the air again. Don't know whether it is true or not, but does not seem all that unlikely.

I don't blame the universities for wanting all the money they can get. Hell, we all like money and universities are no exception. But since if the tuition fees come it would be a state policy enquiring minds want to know how it fits with the government's recent plans of getting more foreign students to come to Finland and stay here after completing their studies.

Official Finland's attitude to foreign students has sure change a lot since I came here eleven years ago, and has changed in many directions too. When I came here I heard many times that I would be expected to go back after graduating, so as not to deprive Finns of their jobs and not to cause brain drain in the United States. (I expected to go back too, but this place kind of grows on you, and the men are so damn cute.) Apart from these constant reminders and the yearly 4-to-6-months residence permit application drama everything was quite well. Nobody was talking about tuition fees, KELA gave me a KELA-card which gave the right to some of its services, most importantly the national health insurance, and foreign students were allowed to work for 20 hours a week during the school terms and full-time during vacations without any need for a work permit.

Then came the year 1995, when somebody up there has decided that foreign students don't have to be given KELA cards anymore, and KELA did not renew my card. I called them and asked them why not. "Well, you are a foreign student. You can leave the country at any time," - answered the KELA woman. I told her that I was not aware that people who are not foreign students are somehow not allowed to leave the country at any time. She told me to bugger off. I called somebody higher up in KELA, and they told me that this is indeed the new rule, but that it applies only to the newcomers, not to the students who are already here and trying to renew their KELA card, so I got my card and lived happily ever after.

It is still the case that each city is allowed to decide whether or not to give foreign students a KELA card. Last time I heard, which was a few months ago, they gave foreign students KELA cards in Helsinki and Vantaa, but not in Espoo. Living in Finland without a KELA card is a disaster waiting to happen, and it happens the moment you need some medical help not provided by YTHS or your employer. Insurance companies do not sell health insurance (or accident, or even continuous travel insurance) to people who do not have KELA cards, and some (Sampo) do not sell it even to people who have KELA cards that are renewable each year. If you get seriously sick without an insurance, you are seriously fucked. But I digress...

The rest of my student years passed mostly uneventfully in the official sense. The instances that deal with residence permits told me I would be expected to leave the country after my studies and not steal the jobs, all the other instances told me that I was unworthy since I would meanly run away after my studies instead of staying and contributing to the Finnish economy, and the life went on. It did become a bit more complicated after I got a full-time job. It was not hard to get a work permit, but they still wanted to give me student resident permits even though I was working full-time, since they did not like to give workers' residence permits to people who have not graduated yet. As the result every year they told me that I can't get a worker's residence permit because I am still a student, and can't get a student's residence permit because I don't study enough. The solution to this problem always was to run and take as many test as I could, after which they decided that I was a worthy student and gave me a student residence permit with a full-time work permit.

Around those times the media and the politicians started talking about getting educated foreigners to come to work here. Apparently they wanted these educated foreigners to be educated somewhere else, because at the same time they were trying to get the foreign students who graduated here to go away. The practice softened with times, however. They warned me many times that I will have to go back to the US after graduation and get my worker's residence permit from there, but in fact they did give it to me here.

Lately they became nicer in many ways, and the new Aliens law is in most ways an improvement. For example somebody finally figured out that the Finnish-educated foreign students might in fact constitute a part of the educated foreign workforce that they want to come here, and they eased many residence and work permit rules for them. Too late for me, of course, but hey, better late than never. Of course the new law doubled the time needed for a permanent residence permit, probably in fear of the onslaught of that foreign educated workforce.

The latest trend in the treatment of foreigners is very interesting indeed. On one hand, the authorities tightened up the control on employers, trying to make sure that they don't treat foreign workers any worse than the Finnish ones. On the other hand, the authorities themselves seem to practice a lot less equal treatment then eleven years ago, what with KELA cards and lack thereof and all the current talk about tuition fees. Don't discriminate against the foreigners privately! Only the officials are allowed to do so!

The one government office that has never treated me as a foreigner was the Tax Office. I mean, they have never contacted me and said that I don't need to pay as much taxes as Finns on account of not being allowed to use all the services, or because they expect me to leave here and never collect the elderly benefit, or for any reason. (Not that I'd expect them to, of course.) That's a very commendable commitment to equality from them. Other instances take notice!