Statement: Any money spent on students’ mental health is money spent on Finland’s future
The health of Finnish students is deteriorating. More resources are needed to redeem the welfare crisis at hand and to safeguard the future labor force in Finland.
These days a third of the university students in Finland suffers from mental health issues, such as depression or anxiety. The latest research shows that 7 percent of the students suffer from burn-outs while another 19% have milder symptoms of burn-out and feelings of inefficiency. The Covid-19 pandemic has left its marks on our lives and had a negative influence on our mental health. We can however not blame the pandemic alone when surveying the negative trend we see today. Well before the pandemic, the decline of the mental health of students was visible and the trend keeps developing in the wrong direction. During all of the 21st century the number of students who suffer from mental health has increased at an alarming rate.
For students to keep up with academic requirements, rising inflation which makes it harder to make ends meet is impossible. The current global political situation with the war in Ukraine, which has shaken all of Europe, rising energy prices and rents going up have all resulted in a widespread feeling of uncertainty among students. Many students are also excluded from the student community due to distance studies and the difficulties of resuming normal studies at campus after the pandemic. In addition to that, only half of the university students exercise at a recommended level. Sustaining a balanced way of life that would contribute to improving mental health is incredibly difficult as most students on top of all of this are forced to work part time in order to make ends meet.
Ever since the universities of applied sciences made the transition to SHVS healthcare, the demand at student health services has been too high and the waiting times often long, especially for service in Swedish. In Finland today, there are roughly 168, 000 students at universities of applied sciences, of which a third according to surveys made by KELA and THL feel that they need professional help to move forward. At present, the time students have to wait for healthcare can be several months. At the start of 2023 the health care fee for all students was raised to 73,60€ in order to compensate for the demand the student health care services were facing and to improve access to services. In the long run, it is not a sustainable model to keep raising fees for students, who are already in a tight financial situation. A better solution is to provide the necessary resources for shortening the waiting time for services and ensuring that help is given to those in need in due time.
With parliamentary elections on the horizon and with the alarming statistics in mind we would like to argue that the well-being and mental health of students should be a major topic in the debate and decision making on a national level. Any money spent on students’ mental health is money spent on Finland’s future. Without help, the already diminishing group of future taxpayers shrink even further.
For more information,
The student union at Novia University of Applied Sciences - Novium
Lina Johansson Union Chairman
+358 453430777
Arcada Student Union – ASK
Abbe Karlsson - member of the board
This joint statement is a part of Novium and ASK’s mutual campaign “kaikille samma!”