While the mean monthly student income stands at €1,078, expenses average at almost the same: €1,023, and more than 60 percent of students now work while studying to make ends meet as the new academic year gets underway.

According to a recently completed Praxis study, expenses have grown nearly twice as fast as income for wage earners has, and students' income has increased considerably more slowly than that.

University of Tartu political science student Marian Müürsepp told ERR she knows many students who have even been skipping meals due to a shortage of funds. Others wait for reduced food items to go on sale, or wait until pastries get sold at half price in the evening. "Without my parents' support, I wouldn't be able to study in Tartu at all," she said.

Needs-based study allowances range from €150 to €440 a month, depending on household income. Students can apply if household income is below €756 per family member per month. A student is considered part of their parents' household until age 24, unless they marry or have a child earlier.

Ronja Ansmann, vice president of the Federation of Estonian Student Unions (Üliõpilaskondade liit), said the system's main flaw is how support gets calculated. "If you read the Family Law Act, it states that a student must be supported until the age of 21, which means that in practice the young person is left completely without protection, for three years," Ansmann said, adding that the system "simply isn't functioning at the moment."

However, Margus Haidak, senior adviser at the Ministry of Education and Research's higher education department, said boosting study allowances further would not be the rational thing to do at present. "The last time study allowances were increased, they were doubled. Today, spending on need‑based study allowances is around €15 million a year, and we see the primary priority as ensuring opportunities for tuition‑free study," he said.

Ansmann countered that while allowances were indeed raised in 2023, that was a one off: They had not increased at all from 2013 to 2023, and have not been raised again since.

Students can also apply for student loans of up to €6,000. Eneli Nairis, head of small‑scale financing at Swedbank, said demand has be rising every year since legislative changes in autumn 2022, with over 1,800 customers seen in 2024 — 4 percent of those eligible.

Müürsepp challenged the assumption that students are supposed to be poor. "I think that in the 21st century, getting a higher education should no longer mean that a person constantly has to worry about whether they have enough money for food or rent," she said. "That mentality should not be the norm."

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