The Norwegian government decided to implement tuition fees for all non-EU/EEA citizens for attending universities in Norway beginning in August 2023, and the first numbers are in seeing as we’re getting very close to the start of the semester!
Only 234 non-EU/EEA citizens paying tuitions fees are beginning university in Norway in August 2023, a sharp decline from the 1,533 non-EU/EEA students who began in August 2022. This is a close to 80 % reduction, way higher than the government’s anticipated 70 % reduction in non-EU students.
Some universities are hit more severely than others, and degrees in arts and design all over Norway have reported zero paying students.
The big and well-known universities like University of Bergen has seen a reduction from 75 non-EU students to only 12 non-EU students in the span of this year.
The University of Oslo has a much less impactful difference, going down from 137 non-EU students to 82 non-EU students.
Most universities are expected to end up with a huge financial loss because of this, due to budget costs stemming from the implementation of tuition fees. Only a few universities in all of Norway are expected to make as much as they previously would when the Norwegian government would pay the non-EU student’s tuition fees, so they are looking at a several million NOK budget reduction.
All the numbers were collected by Khrono, a Norwegian newspaper who writes about Norway’s students and universities.