Some foreign students in Finland will be charged tuition beginning in 2010, if a new university law drawn up by the government is approved and goes into effect, as expected, in late 2009, according to the Finnish newspaper Helsingen Sanomat.

Students from outside the 27-nation European Union and the European Economic Area now enjoy access to free higher education in Finland, but the new law would impose tuition on non-European students enrolled in certain master’s programs, including those taught “in foreign languages and those with an international orientation,” the newspaper says.

Such programs are of growing importance to Finnish universities, which are increasingly turning to English-language degree programs in order to attract more international students. According to Finland’s Center For International Mobility, some 450 programs are taught in English at the country’s universities and polytechnics.

Helsingen Sanomat says universities would be allowed to set annual fees at their discretion, but notes that proposals a few years ago floated a range from approximately $5,000 to $18,000.

Meanwhile, Sweden’s higher-education minister said recently that similar changes were likely to take effect in that Nordic country in 2010 as well. According to the online publication The Local, the minister, Lars Leijonborg, told Svenska Dagbladet, a leading newspaper, that the government had reached agreement on the controversial issue and was now united in its belief that Swedish universities needed to be able to charge foreign students tuition in the way that American and British universities have long done.

Student groups oppose the plan and worry that it is the first step toward charging tuition to Swedish students as well.

“Free education is one of the primary reasons that students choose Sweden,” The Local reports, noting that most of the 13,000 foreign students in Sweden who are not enrolled in exchange programs are “Asian men who are pursuing technical degrees.” —Aisha Labi