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Discontinuation of financial aid

Your financial aid will have to be discontinued as of 1 January if you do not reply to the request for information or if we cannot accept your reason for making slower progress in your studies.

After financial aid has been discontinued, you can get financial aid again once you have a sufficient amount of credits. The letter informing you of the decision to discontinue your aid shows the required number of credits.

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 discontinuation. File a new application for student financial aid and explain in your application why you have made slow progress in your studies.

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. File a new application for student financial aid and explain in your application why you have made slow progress in your studies.

Bachelor's and master's degrees at a university

If you are completing both a bachelor's and a master's degree at a university, and your financial aid was discontinued when your progress towards the bachelor's degree was monitored, you are considered to have made satisfactory progress once you have completed the bachelor's degree.

This means that you can receive financial aid towards a master’s degree even if you have not met the study credit requirements set for you. However, you must have some months of financial aid remaining.

You must apply if you want to get financial aid again after it has been discontinued. More information about financial aid for bachelor's and master's level university degrees.

How to file a new application for financial aid

  1. Make your new application for student financial aid on the form for notification of changes in OmaKela (in Finnish and Swedish only).
  2. In OmaKela, you can see if your application has been decided and how much you will get.

Alternatively you can complete and print out the form titled Notification of changes - Financial aid for students OT 15e (pdf). Send the application and any supporting documents by mail. The address is Kela, PL 10, 00056 KELA.

The earliest we can grant financial aid is the beginning of the month in which your application arrived. If you are in higher education, you can get financial aid again from the beginning of the month in which you earned the required number of credits.

Retroactive discontinuation and recovery of financial aid

We will tell you in a request for further information if we are considering whether to discontinue your financial aid with retroactive effect. This means that you may lose financial aid that you have already received for your studies. In that case, we will probably have to require you to pay back the financial aid that you have been overpaid.

However, the monitoring of study progress seldom results in the retroactive discontinuation and recovery of financial aid.

If you are a student in upper secondary education, your financial aid can be discontinued with retroactive effect if you have earned extremely few credits and you never intended to study in the first place.

If you are a student in higher education, your financial aid can be discontinued with retroactive effect if both of the following conditions are fulfilled:

  • You have earned less than 1 credit on average for each month of financial aid in the previous academic year.
  • Your intention was not to study at all but, for instance, to work.

What other kind of financial aid can you get if your student financial aid is discontinued?

If your student financial aid payments have been stopped because you have not made satisfactory academic progress, you may be entitled to basic social assistance. Basic social assistance is a last-resort form of assistance. Learn more about basic social assistance.

Last modified 23/2/2024