The number of international students in Estonian higher education institutions peaked in the 2019/2020 academic year, when they accounted for 12.2 percent of the country's total student population. However, the Coronavirus pandemic, the war in Ukraine and several other reasons have led to a reduction in the number of students coming to study in Estonia since then. This academic year, 8.7 percent of the total student population are from outside Estonia.

"It's certainly concerning, as to why we have become an unpopular country, because our universities still offer high-quality higher education," said Kristi Raudmäe, head of higher education at the Ministry of Education and Research.

A large proportion of foreign students who come to Estonia, study at the University of Tartu. This academic year, the university's roster includes nearly a hundred students from different countries, the most numerous of which are Ukraine, Finland and Azerbaijan.

Ülle Tensing, adviser for internationalization at the university, said the reduced number of international students means smaller study groups, but also less income for the university.

"From the university's point of view, there was certainly an expectation that study groups would be larger. This has a bit of an impact on the learning environment and also affects the number of fee-paying students," Tensing said.

While the number of international students has decreased overall, the number of foreign students who do not complete their studies, having started them in Estonia, has remained more or less the same. Every year, around ten percent of international students fail to complete courses in Estonia. By comparison, around 14-15 percent of Estonian students drop out every year.

"The graduation rate for international students is very good. We have just looked at international students graduating from Master's programs and over 70 percent of international students graduate in the nominal time. Less than 20 percent of students take longer than the nominal time to graduate and the drop-out rate is around 10 percent," said Tensing.

International students drop out for a number of reasons, including not choosing the right field of study or because the curriculum is considered too demanding. However, there are also economic reasons.

According to Riigikogu MP Rain Epler (EKRE), a broader look should be taken at why not all international students graduate and what happens to them instead.

"In an ideal world, you would think that if a person makes the journey to study somewhere far away, then their focus would be on studying. But in reality, maybe the focus is not on studying, but on coming to Europe," he said.

According to the head of the higher education department of the Ministry of Education, visas for students from third countries depend on  being enrolled in full-time study.

"If they drop out of their full-time studies, they will no longer be able to stay in Estonia on this visa. If they are studying full-time, they have to complete a minimum of 75 percent of their curriculum each year," Raudmäe explained.

He added that in view of Estonia's future labor needs, an agreement ought to be made on how much of the shortfall could be made up by people from abroad.

According to Raudmäe, ministries are currently holding discussions on that issue and are also discussing ways to attract more international talent onto the Estonian labor market.

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