If you intend to complete more than one course of study in higher education
If you have completed a higher education degree and continue your studies in higher education afterwards, you can get student financial aid for a number of months that corresponds to the total aid period available to you. You cannot get as many months of financial aid for your next degrees as you did for your first degree.
The total aid period refers to the total number of financial aid months you can get for your studies in higher education. Any financial aid months you have already used while completing a previous degree will be deducted from your total aid period. This means that the amount of financial aid months you can use when studying for a new degree is either the remaining number of months that is left of your total aid period after your previous degree or the maximum aid period you have the right to based on your new degree.
The total aid period available for your higher education studies is a maximum of 54 months if you began a new course of study on or after 1 August 2017. When you start new studies, the financial aid months you have already used will be deducted from the total of 54 months. However, the amount of financial aid you can get for your new degree cannot exceed the maximum aid period available for that degree.
If you began a new course of study between 1 August 2014 and 31 July 2017, you can get a maximum total of 64 months of financial aid for all your studies in higher education.
If you began a new course of study before 1 August 2014, you can get a maximum total of 70 months of financial aid for all your studies in higher education.
You can use the total aid period available to you and any financial aid months left over from your previous degree to study for a new degree or for post-graduate studies or other higher education studies. However, you cannot be paid student financial aid for the entire duration of the total aid period if you were admitted to a university to complete both a first-cycle degree (bachelor’s degree) and a second-cycle degree (master’s degree) and you then complete the first-cycle degree and continue with the same studies.
If your new degree is at least 360 credits or if you are enrolled in a foreign institution of higher education to complete a degree with a regular completion time of at least 6 academic years, the total aid period you have the right to is 57 months.
When do you have the right to the total aid period?
If you have previously completed a degree at a university of applied sciences or a second-cycle degree at an institution of higher education, you can get a total of 54 months of student financial aid for your studies in higher education. Any financial aid months you have already used on previous higher education studies will be deducted from this total aid period available to you.
If you have previously completed a first-cycle degree at an institution of higher education, you can get student financial aid for the total aid period if
- you begin a new course of study at a university of applied sciences
- you begin studying towards a higher education degree in another field of study
- you have completed a first-cycle degree abroad and continue your studies in Finland
- you have completed a first-cycle degree in Finland and continue your studies abroad
- you were previously admitted to only complete a first-cycle degree
You can get student financial aid for the total aid period, which is 54 months, also if you are admitted to complete a separate second-cycle degree for example in a master’s degree programme.
The number of financial aid months you can get for a separate second-cycle degree is, at most, the amount of months you have the right to based on the regular completion time of the second-cycle degree.
Number of financial aid months available for a separate second-cycle degree after previous studies at an institution of higher education
Anna has been admitted to a master’s degree programme to complete a 120-credit second-cycle degree. Anna started her first course of study at an institution of higher education on 1 August 2017, but she has not completed a degree.
The total aid period available to Anna is 54 months. Anna already used 33 months of financial aid during her previous studies, so she can get 21 months of financial aid for her studies in the master’s degree programme.
If you have discontinued your first course of study
If you did not complete your first degree, you cannot get student financial aid for the total aid period. You can get as many months of student financial aid as you have the right to based on the scope of your new degree, minus any months of aid you have already used.
Even if you have discontinued your studies, the maximum aid period available to you will still depend on when you began your first course of study at an institution of higher education.
Example 1: Number of financial aid months available for a degree at a university of applied sciences if the previous studies were not completed
Niko has used 18 months of financial aid for studies at a university that began on 1 August 2021. He discontinues his studies at the university and starts a new course of study at a university of applied sciences that is 210 credits in scope.
The maximum aid period available for a degree at a university of applied sciences is 35 months. Niko can get 17 months of financial aid for his new course of study as this is what remains after the months of aid he has already spent have been deducted from the maximum available to him based on his new course of study (35 – 18 = 17 months).
Example 2: Number of financial aid months available for completing both a first- and second-cycle degree if previous studies were not completed
Eetu is enrolled in an institution of higher education to complete both a first-cycle degree and a second-cycle degree. He has 30 months of financial aid available for the first-cycle degree (180 credits) and 21 months for the second-cycle degree (120 credits), but he cannot use more than 48 months of financial aid in total.
Eetu has previously used 17 months of financial aid for a course of study in higher education that he did not complete. He has a maximum of 30 months of financial aid available for his first-cycle degree, and in the end, he uses 27 months of financial aid while completing this degree. Eetu can only get four months of financial aid for his second-cycle degree as this is what remains after all the financial aid months he has already used have been deducted (48 – 17 – 27 = 4 months).
Postgraduate studies at a university
The Finnish system categorises licentiates and doctorates as postgraduate degrees. You can get a maximum of 9 months of financial aid in total for all your postgraduate studies.
However, you should note that if you began your studies on or after 1 August 2017, the total number of financial aid months you can get for all your higher education studies is 54 months.