Study progress in higher education
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You must make sufficient progress with your studies in order to get financial aid for students. The financial aid for students consists of study grant, government guarantee for student loan and housing supplement.
Kela monitors your study progress annually in October. When monitoring your study progress, we look at your study progress in the previous academic year, which is also the academic year under review (1 August–31 July), and during the entire time you have studied at a higher education institution. If you do not make sufficient progress with your studies, we will send you a request for information, and by replying to the request you can tell us why your study progress is slowed.
If you do not reply or if the reasons you set out cannot be accepted, we may have to discontinue your financial aid.
Sufficient study progress
Your study progress is considered sufficient if you meet both of the following requirements:
- You earn at least 5 credits on average for each month of financial aid for students.
- You earn at least 20 credits in each academic year, i.e. the minimum number of credits required per academic year.
A month of financial aid is a month in which you have been paid either a study grant or a housing supplement. A month of financial aid is not a month
- for which you have paid back the financial aid or for which the financial aid has been recovered
- during which you have only been paid general housing allowance.
We monitor your study progress for each academic year (1 August–31 July). Even if you have not earned on average 5 credits for each month of financial aid during the academic year, you can still get financial aid if you have earned on average at least 5 credits per month of financial aid during your higher education studies. You are, however, also required to complete at least 20 credits during the academic year being monitored.
If you wish to reduce the number of months of financial aid that are taken into account when monitoring your study progress, you can cancel financial aid or return financial aid that you have already received.
Please note, though, that the number of months of financial aid does not affect the minimum number of credits you must earn during the academic year (minimum requirement for study progress). Even if you get financial aid for only one month within a single academic year, you must still earn at least 20 credits.
The minimum requirement for progress does not apply to the first academic year of any course of study that begins in the spring term (1 January–31 July). The minimum requirement also does not apply to the academic year in which you graduate.
When monitoring study progress, we take into account all the credits you have earned in Finnish higher education institutions and all the months of financial aid for students you have used from the start of your higher education studies. However, we do not take into account studies from before 1 August 2011. Studies completed in a foreign higher education institution are taken into account if they have been registered at a Finnish institution of higher education.
The credits are taken into account according to their original completion date. If a course you have completed earlier is taken into account as part of your new studies, we will consider the original completion date of the course as the completion date.
Credits earned in the autumn term (1 August–31 July) count towards the study progress the following year. If studies you have completed in June and July are entered in the study record for the autumn term, we can, however, include them as studies completed in the previous academic year under review when you tell us that they were completed before 1 August.
Credits earned in an open university are also taken into account in the monitoring of study progress, if you have earned them after starting your degree studies in an institution of higher education. Credits earned before the start of the degree studies in an institution of higher education (for example, path studies) are not taken into account when monitoring study progress.
If you complete a higher education degree during the academic year under review or in the autumn before monitoring begins, you have made sufficient progress in your studies.
If you have completed a higher education degree earlier, i.e. before the academic year under review, your study credits and months of financial aid are taken into account for the time following the month when you completed the degree.
Study progress may sometimes be slower than usual. In certain situations, there may be an acceptable reason for this. These situations include:
- an illness suffered by yourself or by a close family member
- other difficult personal circumstances
- completing a particularly large study module, such as a thesis
-
discontinuation or continuation of studies during the academic year due to childbirth or military or non-military service.
In such situations you can still get financial aid.
How to reply to a request for further information
This is what to do if you get a request for information about your study progress:
- Check that all the courses you have completed have been entered into your study record at the institutions of higher education where you have studied.
- Reply to the request in the OmaKela e-service (available in Finnish and Swedish). Log in to OmaKela and go to the reply form under Ilmoita muutoksista (Report changes).
- Tell us if courses that you have completed are missing from the study record.
- Tell us why your studies have not progressed sufficiently.
- Tell us if you have paid back financial aid on your own initiative after the request for information was sent.
If you cannot use OmaKela, you can reply to the request by calling Kela’s customer service. You can also mail the reply to the address Kela, PL 10, 00056 KELA.
Check the credits you have earned
Check the credits you have earned and notify us of situations described in the following when you reply to the request for information. Please follow the instructions given.
If any credits you have earned are missing from the study record, ask your educational institution to enter them into the record for the academic year in which you earned them.
Reply to the request for information and tell us
- which credits are missing from the study record
- what their extent is
- when you earned them.
Also provide details about the extent and completion dates of any credits that have been registered to a different academic year than the one in which you earned them. On the basis of your reply, we will check the credits in the VIRTA database, if you have studied in a Finnish institution of higher education.
A partially completed study module (e.g. thesis) is not necessarily/generally/always shown in the study record. When you reply to the request for information, tell us how many credits you have earned for the partially completed study module by 31 July.
If you study at a Finnish institution of higher education and you have credits from a foreign institution of higher education and you want them to be taken into account when your study progress is monitored, reply to the request for information and tell us
- which credits are missing from the study record
- what is their scope (e.g. credits)
- when you earned them.
If you study abroad, you must, once per academic year, send to Kela a transcript of records issued by your school showing the credits you earned in the previous academic year. If you want us to take into account your previous studies in Finland in the monitoring of study progress, let us know about this. Please note that we will then also take into account the months of financial aid that you have used for these studies.
If you have credits from the National Defence University and you want them to be taken into account when your study progress is monitored, reply to the request for information and tell us
- which credits are missing from the study record
- what is their scope (e.g. credits)
- when you earned them.
You do not have to send us a certificate from your school showing the credits you have earned.
Please note that if you want us to take your study credits into account when monitoring your study progress, we will also take into account the months of financial aid you have used for these studies.
If you have credits from a Finnish institution of higher education that you have earned before 1 August 2011 and that you want to count towards your study progress, provide details about them in your reply. You do not need to provide a certificate of these studies because we will check them against the VIRTA database.
Please note that we will also take into account the months of financial aid that you have used for these studies.
Explain why you have not made enough progress with your studies
If the reason you have not earned enough credits is for instance illness or a difficult life situation, you should explain in your reply how your illness or your life situation have affected your study progress. Provide as detailed information as possible about how and when your illness or life situation has affected your study progress. You do not have to submit a medical certificate on your illness.
If you have switched to a new course of study, explain why you ended your previous course of study and how the switch has affected your study progress. You do not have to send documentation about your course change.
Returning financial aid when you have already received a request for information
If you return financial aid for students after you have received a letter requesting information on your study progress, you must reply to the letter and tell us that you have returned financial aid.
Once you have received the request for further information, you can still pay back financial aid for the spring term. However, you will no longer be able to return financial aid for the autumn term of the preceding year, because the closing date for voluntary repayment of financial aid has passed. For example, financial aid for the spring term 2026 can still be paid back in autumn 2026, but it will no longer be possible to pay back financial aid for the autumn term 2025.
Read more about repayment of financial aid on your own initiative.
What happens if you do not reply to the information request?
If you do not reply, we have to discontinue your financial aid.
We may also require you to pay back financial aid if you have earned particularly few credits and you never intended to study.
Financial aid for a specified period of time or discontinuation of financial aid
Financial aid payable for a specified period of time only
If we consider it necessary to monitor your study progress more closely, we may change your financial aid to be paid out for a specified period of time only. You will need to earn enough credits during this period in order to be eligible for financial aid after it ends.
You will receive a decision on student financial aid payable for a specified period of time only, including information on how many credits you have to earn within the specified time, i.e. usually by the end of the
current academic year. You will not get financial aid automatically after the specified time period. Instead you will have to apply for it again.
You can get financial aid again when you meet both of the following requirements:
- You have earned at least 20 credits since the beginning of the academic year for which financial aid was granted for a specified period of time, and
- You have earned at least 5 credits on average for each month of financial aid.
If you do not earn enough credits during the specified period of time, we will not be able to grant you financial aid after that.
However, even if you have not earned enough credits within the specified time period, you may be able to re-qualify for financial aid if your study progress was slowed due to an acceptable reason. Provide information about the reason for the slowed study progress when you apply for financial aid.
You can also cancel student financial aid in advance. If you for instance pay back the financial aid for one month, you can earn 5 credits less than required within the specified period of time. You must, however, earn at least 20 credits during the academic year regardless of the number of months for which you have received financial aid.
If the specified period of time during which you received financial aid has ended and you did not earn enough credits during it, you can get student financial aid again in any of the following ways:
- by paying back student financial aid for a sufficient number of months
- by earning the credits you are missing without the benefit of financial aid
- by earning at least 20 credits' worth of a new course of study since the specified period of time for which you received financial aid ended.
Then submit a new application for financial aid.
Discontinuation of financial aid
If you do not reply to the request for information or if we cannot accept your reason for making slower progress, we will have to discontinue your financial aid as from 1 January.
After financial aid has been discontinued, you can get financial aid again once at least one of the following conditions is fulfilled:
- You have earned at least 5 credits on average for each month of financial aid throughout your studies.
- You have made at least 20 credits' worth of progress with a new course of study since the financial aid was discontinued.
If Kela has stopped paying you financial aid because you earned fewer than 20 credits in the academic year under review, you cannot get financial aid again until you have made at least 20 credits' worth of progress with a new course of study.
You must apply if you want to get financial aid again after it has been discontinued.
You can also re-qualify for financial aid after it has been discontinued if you have an acceptable reason why you did not meet the minimum requirement for study progress after the financial aid was discontinued. Apply for financial aid again and explain in the application why your study progress is slowed.
Financial aid made payable for a specified period of time or discontinued after a first-cycle degree
If you are completing both a first-cycle degree and a second-cycle degree in a university, and your student financial aid was changed to be paid out for a specified period of time only or discontinued when your progress towards the first-cycle degree was monitored, you are considered to have made sufficient progress once you have completed the first-cycle degree.
This means that you can get financial aid towards a second-cycle degree even if you have not met the credit requirements set for you. However, you must have months of financial aid left.
If you wish to get financial aid for the second-cycle degree, you will have to apply for it after you have completed the first-cycle degree. However, you can get financial aid at the earliest from the beginning of the month after you completed the degree.
How to file a new application for financial aid after change of the financial aid to be payable for a specified period of time or discontinuation
- Make your new application for student financial aid with a notification of changes in OmaKela (available in Finnish and Swedish).
- In OmaKela, you can see if your application has been decided and how much you will get.
If you cannot use OmaKela, send your application to Kela by post. Save the form Notification of changes – Financial aid for students OT 15e (PDF) to your device and fill it in after saving it. Print out the completed form and send it and any supporting documents to the address Kela, PL 10, 00056 KELA.
You can get financial aid again from the beginning of the month in which you earned the required number of credits. However, student financial aid can be granted at the earliest from the beginning of the month in which we receive your application.
The student financial aid can be discontinued with retroactive effect, if you during the previous academic year have earned on average less than one credit per month of financial aid and you never intended to study, for instance if you are working instead.
Discontinuation with retroactive effect means that your financial aid is discontinued starting from an earlier date. This may mean for instance that we in February 2027 issue a decision whereby we discontinue the financial aid starting from 1 September 2025. In such cases, you will usually have to pay back financial aid that you have already been paid.
We will tell you in the request for further information if we are considering whether to discontinue your financial aid with retroactive effect.
However, the monitoring of study progress seldom results in the retroactive discontinuation and recovery of financial aid.
What else is going on in your life?
Are you struggling with your studies?
If your studies are not progressing as planned, contact your educational institution’s student advice services and student health services for help and advice. You might also benefit from rehabilitation offered by Kela.
Did you fall ill?
If you have to take a long sick leave, consider applying for sickness allowance instead of using your student financial aid months. You need a medical certificate to qualify for sickness allowance.