Tallinn University of Technology to drastically raise fees, no more free courses for foreign students
The Tallinn University of Technology announced that it will raise its course fees starting with the coming academic year, and no longer offer free courses to students from abroad.
The council of the university confirmed the new course fees already on Dec. 20 last year, against the resistance of student organizations. The biggest increase in fees is announced for all English-language courses of the university’s school of information technologies, where the regular course fee will jump from €48 to €100 per credit point.
Across the university, all courses in Estonian will cost at least €40 per credit point, courses in English begin at €55. The only study areas of the university where fees will remain the same is in the curricula of the economics department, as those have already been raised.
On average the fee per credit point will increase by about €10. Estonian students have to gather at least 45 points a year in order for the state to pay their tuition. If they come in below that, they have to pay for their university education themselves.
In addition, while foreign students currently enjoy the same treatment as their Estonian fellows on science as well as engineering curricula, they will lose this advantage with the coming academic year, as the council of the university decided to make foreign students pay for all the courses they take. This means that courses currently available to foreign students for free will cost a fee per credit point in the future as well.
Changes will only affect new students admitted starting September 2017
As the university wrote in a supplementary press release on Wednesday, successful students will be able to continue their studies at Tallinn University of Technology free of charge, and the change in the price of credit points does not concern today’s students. The price for credit points rises as compared to today’s only for new students who will take up their studies at the university starting from the new academic year.
Full-time studies with Estonian as the language of instruction are free of charge at Tallinn University of Technology, only part-time students and students in paid studies have pay for credit points.
Students on curricula taught in English can apply for a scholarship to cover the costs of their tuition fee, and as a rule successful students study free of charge also in curricula where the language of instruction is English. The number of scholarships depends on the curriculum, with more scholarships in the natural, exact, and engineering sciences, altogether amounting to up to 90 percent of the number of student places.
“Studying at Tallinn University of Technology is free of charge for talented and hard-working students. Talented students who choose a curriculum taught in English, for which a tuition fee needs to be paid, can cover the costs of the fee with a scholarship in case of many curricula. For example, in ICT disciplines, up to 90 percent of the students can receive a scholarship covering 100 percent of the tuition fee,” TTÜ Vice-Rector of Academic Affairs, Academician Jakob Kübarsepp, explained.
Kübarsepp is convinced that studies in English that require a fee will not diminish the interest of foreign students in the university. “Diligent students need not worry about payment of the tuition fee,” Kübarsepp said.
Editor: Editor: Dario Cavegn