On Wednesday morning, the government presented its budget bill for 2020. It is the mandate period's second autumn budget, the first based on the points in the January agreement. The bill contains changes that will affect students next year, but it also provides an idea of what the focus of higher education policy may look like for the rest of the term.
The most interesting for us is, of course, expenditure area 15 on study grants, as well as the part of expenditure area 16 that concerns universities and colleges. But questions about students' health insurance, health and housing are also important. We have reviewed the budget bill for 2020 and summarized the changes that affect students at universities and colleges the most.
Comprehensive reforms of the higher education sector?
The development of higher education in Sweden today faces two important overarching questions: What should happen to the governance of the sector, and how is the so-called reform space used in the balance between more students or quality initiatives?
The steering and resource investigation was presented in February and the consultation period expired this summer. It is thus relatively early and therefore important to have an understanding that the government has not had time to proceed with the investigation. On the other hand, it is unexpected that the government does not mention the Governance and Resources Inquiry at all when it describes the focus on next year's higher education policy. Nor does it address anything about the four-year bill for research policy to come next autumn. All in all, it is therefore very difficult to read what the government wants to happen with the university's governance.
What is clear, however, is that the government is investing in raising knowledge. The promotion of knowledge began last term and includes, among other things, an expansion of the number of places at the university. The costs for the new places in 2020 are expected to amount to SEK 348 million (which can be compared with approximately SEK 300 million disappearing from existing educational places in the form of efficiency requirements of almost one percent, but it is another story). Already 2017 we wrote about the challenge of weighing the expansion of new places against investing more in the quality of the training places that already exist. A conclusion from the Budget Bill 2020 is that the government has not changed its direction, but continues to prioritize expansion.
Investment against cheating
Cheating on the university entrance exam is one of the educational issues that has been highlighted most in the media in the past year. Laws and regulations regarding the university entrance examination have been tightened and in 2018 the first legal cases concerning aiding and abetting cheating were decided. At the same time, work to develop further measures has continued, and in July an inquiry came up with more proposals. That investigation is currently out for consultation. For SFS 'part, it remains to take a position on the proposals. Even now, however, we can say that it is positive that more measures are being taken to prevent cheating. All paths into the university must be legally secure. No one should have to be denied a place in education because someone else has competed with them in forms of injustice.
In the budget for 2020, the government proposes to add SEK 15 million to the University and College Council for their work to prevent cheating. The purpose is for the authority to have room to implement future changes to counter fraud. We think this is a good and prioritized investment.
No support for student influence
It is now a decade since the compulsory union was abolished. The change meant a major change in the conditions for student influence. Among other things, there were some clarifications about the student unions' assignments. But perhaps the most noticeable change was the decrease in revenue as a result of the decrease in the number of members who paid membership fees. The inquiry that formed the basis for the reform proposed that the state should make a contribution to ensure that student influence would continue to function at a reasonable level. Such a contribution was also introduced, but it was only one third of the recommended levels.
In 2017, the University Chancellor's Office (UKÄ) proposed that the state subsidy for student influence should be tripled or quadrupled. The purpose is for all students to be able to have an influence over their education, not least to ensure that the educations are of high quality. It is made more difficult if the student unions cannot build up a sufficiently comprehensive operation to comply with their statutory assignment.
Due to the principles that governed the budget work during the 2018 transitional government, the state subsidy for student influence was not even calculated with price and salary increases, which was done for basically all other appropriations. At that point, the increase returns to normal in this year's budget, which is good. But the triple or quadruple recommended by UKÄ is missing. The effect of this is that the student unions' activities suffer and thus the education gets even lower quality compared to what it could have had.
Investment in housing for students
The government proposes an increase in investment support for rental housing and housing for students. The support goes to newly built homes on condition that the homes are rented out at reasonable rents. SFS believes that the support is good, as it leads to lower rents in the otherwise expensive new production.
It can be mentioned here that the investment support was not included in the budget for 2019, ie the budget that was based on a proposal from KD and M and was produced in parallel with the protracted government formation last autumn. The investment support was already reintroduced with the spring change budget in 2019. However, all the trips led to an increased uncertainty about the future of the investment support. It has probably also led to builders not fully daring to trust to be able to apply for support in future construction projects.
According to the proposal, investment support will be increased by SEK 600 million, which corresponds to an increase of 25%. In addition, rule changes are waiting for the support to be of better use and lead to more housing. This is a positive development for which we are very grateful. By increasing and developing the support, it becomes clearer that there is a long-term thinking about investment support. We believe that it strengthens confidence and leads to more housing for students.
Lifelong learning and compensation for development time
The Government proposes to introduce a development period, which, like the previous year off, should give employees an opportunity to develop their skills or develop new skills. The purpose is, among other things, to increase the incentives for more people to switch to occupations where there is a shortage of labor, which will be increasingly important in society's increasing rate of change. The proposal in the budget bill means that those who participate in development time will receive compensation from the state, which will thus be compensation for the loss of income that follows from missed working hours.
Another important issue to enable more people to participate in education later in life, however, is that the study grant is adapted. One of the points in the January agreement is precisely about raising the age limit for the study grant. SFS sees it as an important reform. Among other things, the age limits need to be raised, and the maximum limit for how many years a student can receive study grants needs to be adjusted based on the fact that many educations have become longer as a result of the Bologna reform.
Investments in students' health are delayed
Students are a particularly affected group in society in terms of growing problems with mental illness. Unfortunately, the budget bill does not contain any investments to reverse the trend. Here, the government has admittedly shown that it wants to work more against mental illness, and work is currently underway to investigate whether the student health mission can be developed and clarified. However, we lack a more comprehensive task of producing proposals on how mental illness among students can be prevented and what the causal factors are behind the students feeling so bad. Hopefully we will see more of the latter during the term of office.
Another issue, which has been waiting for a long time, concerns the possibility of part-time sick leave for students. Today, students can be on sick leave of 50 percent if there are special reasons, which in practice has come to mean long-term or chronic illness. This means that those who, for example, suffer from incipient mental illness, or have been ill but are about to recover, cannot study part-time. Instead, they may continue with a 100% study rate until they are so exhausted that they can be on sick leave full time.
In fact, during the last term of office, the government appointed an inquiry which already in February 2018 proposed introducing a more general possibility for students to be on sick leave on a part-time basis. The inquiry was referred in 2018 and since then the government has worked to prepare the issue. We had high hopes that sick leave would be included in this year's autumn budget. Especially since the proposals would not entail any increased costs for the state, it is strange that they are still delaying…
Summary
In summary, there are few reforms that affect the university and students. The government continues to choose to redistribute education grants to more places on campus as well as at a distance without increasing the grants. In practice, this means an erosion. Finding an optimal distribution between quantity and quality is never easy, but it is important to avoid too one-sided prioritization. We need to review the university's management system and we need to do better for the students during their education.
Higher education cannot be allowed to stagnate, it is now and right now that we need to invest more resources to solve societal challenges and prepare for the recession. This is not just about the students, it is about Sweden as a pioneering country.