Education is free at all levels

In Finland, education is free at all levels for pupils and students. There are no tuition fees from pre-primary until higher education. Adult education is the only form of education that may have fees in some cases.

In pre-primary, primary, lower and upper secondary education, the textbooks, school lunch, health and welfare services and transport for students living further away from the school are free for pupils.

In higher education, the students need to buy their learning materials or use public library services. Students’ meals, health and welfare services are subsidised by the state. 

Share of private funding

In Finland, education is publicly funded at all levels. On the official education system, private funding only accounts for 2.6% of all expenditure in general.

In the case of pre-primary, basic and general upper secondary education the share of private funding is only 1%.

In upper secondary vocational education and training as well as higher education the proportion of private funding is 4%.

Expenditures in 2021

The expenditure on education as a percentage of GDP was 5.2 in 2021 and the total amount was 13 billion euro. The share of total public expenditure devoted to education was 10.2%.

Expenditures of primary and lower secondary education made up the biggest share of current expenditure on education. 41% of the expenditures, nearly 5.3 billion euros was spent on the level. This is because the biggest age group - from 7- to 15-year-olds - take part in this level of education.

The second biggest share included university education and research. Nearly 2.5 billion euros or 19% were spent on this level.

The next biggest share was devoted to vocational education, on which 2 billion euro or almost 14% were spent. 

Source: Statistics Finland