Finnish Universities

Overview
Many Finnish universities offer free or low-cost courses for both Finnish residents and international students. When fees are required, these are usually around 15€ per ECTS (European Credit Transfer System). Students should expect to get approximately 0.5 US credits per ECTS, though an evaluation can yield more credits than expect. This depends on a variety of factors that are outside of the control of any students.

Some Finnish universities have courses that can be accessed directly by any international student. Other universities require that students have access to the Finnish Hakka university system. Access to Hakka is possible by first becoming a student at a different Finnish university. Most of XAMK's courses are known to provide access to Hakka, though other universities may exist.

Evaluation Process
Students are advised to complete as many credits (ECTS) as possible from a university before starting the evaluation process. Each evaluation costs a separate fee (approximately $200 for first evaluation and $100 for each subsequent evaluation), regardless of how many credits are being evaluated. Every new university transcript, whether from the same university or from a different one, will count as a separate evaluation.

The basic process is as follows:
 * 1) Complete all desired courses from a given university.
 * 2) Wait for all grades to post to your student account.
 * 3) Obtain the official Transcript of Records (TOR). Each university will have its own methods for doing this.
 * 4) For each transcript, obtain a comprehensive course-by-course report from ACEI.
 * 5) Send that transcript to your chosen school.

Students are not required to have every Finnish transcript evaluated, unless they want to use those credits elsewhere. An example would be a student who took only one class at one Finnish university to gain access to the Hakka system to be able to take multiple classes at a different university. The single-class transcript does not need to be evaluated with the second, multiple class, transcript.

Warning
As of September 2022, it appears that ACEI is the only evaluator willing to evaluate transcripts from Finnish universities. Other evaluators set preconditions, such as official paper transcripts, that Finnish universities are unable/unwilling to provide due to data protection laws. If there is a university out there that is willing to provide what these evaluation companies demand, it has not been discovered yet. The big-name evaluators (WES, ECE, etc.) have been shown to be unwilling to work with Finnish transcripts.

The end result is that TESU students are able to use Finnish universities for credit, while students of other American universities cannot do so by default. It may be possible, after some back and forth between the desired American university and the student, but this is not guaranteed.

University List
These are some of the universities that have been "discovered" to work, either directly or indirectly, with non-Finnish students.

Lapin AMK
Most of Lapin AMK's courses require require students to be in Finland for instruction. These in-person studies are not appropriate for international students. If any online courses are found, fees are 15€ per ECTS or 300€ for blocks of 20 or more ECTS. There are no free courses.

Laurea
Laurea is a university that provides courses in mostly business or computer science. Their MOOC courses are free. Other courses cost either 15€/ECTS or 400€/year. Students may be able to access these courses directly, without needing the Hakka system.

Some of Laurea's courses require active participation in the form of regular Zoom meetings. Students are advised to check the course information page thoroughly before signing up.

Courses may be in English or Finnish. As long as there are no live meetings, students may be able to complete the courses in Finnish with the help of Google Translate or DeepL.

University of Helsinki
Offers courses in a wide variety of subjects, though not all subjects are available at any one time. Students will need a Hakka login (see XAMK) in order to be allowed to obtain ECTS. Some courses are free, others may require a small fee.

Courses have been reported to be difficult. Many are in English, though some are only in Finnish.

MOOC.fi
A subset of the computer science/data science offerings from the University Helsinki. Anyone may study, but only Finnish students or students with access to the Hakka system are able to obtain ECTS after completing the courses.

XAMK
XAMK was the first Finnish university "discovered" to have credit directly available to international students. It is possible to gain access to the Hakka system by taking a XAMK class. Details are available on the XAMK page.

Most XAMK courses are available in English, but some may be available only in Russian or Finnish. It is possible to use tools such as Google Translate or DeepL to understand and complete these courses.