On Tuesday, April 15, Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson presented the government's spring budget for 2025The spring budget is primarily an amending budget that contains adjustments during the current budget year, such as strengthening expenditure items that have proven to be more expensive than expected. But there is also room for investment and the budget contained reinforcements totaling 11,5 billion kronor, including for defense, road maintenance and an increased ROT deduction.
However, Elisabeth Svantesson began this morning's press conference by describing a very uncertain situation. Sweden's recovery from the recession has stalled and growth is low. The new tariffs from the US risk hitting the global economy hard, including through reduced exports from Sweden and Europe. This uncertainty also means that fewer people dare to invest, which further hampers growth.
In this context, it is interesting to reflect on the role of higher education. Higher education can contribute to the supply of skills and strengthen Sweden as an exporting country. As trade barriers from the US increase, the need for Sweden's own innovative power and research is growing.
In this blog post, we provide an overview of how the spring budget may affect students and the higher education sector.
General investments in education
The spring budget contains supplements to most forms of education, not least so that more people can study at a time when unemployment is increasing. This applies to vocational colleges, adult vocational training, but also certain supplements within primary and secondary schools.
The government proposes increased funding for upper secondary vocational adult education by SEK 200 million and for vocational colleges by SEK 320 million. This is expected to lead to approximately 7 and 000 new training places and CSN will receive increased funds to be able to meet the fact that more people are studying with student loans. However, this will not be the case for students at the university.
Reading comprehension assignments within higher education
The budget includes an addition of SEK 2 million to the University Chancellor's Office, which together with Statistics Sweden will receive mission to map how students' access to and use of course literature in higher education has developed over time as a result of the changing media landscape and technological developments. For this purpose, an additional 2 million SEK is also allocated, which the government can distribute to higher education institutions or other authorities later.
SFS believes that this is a strange prioritization, even if the assignment highlights an interesting issue. The university obviously has a responsibility to promote students' opportunities to absorb course literature and further develop their reading and analytical skills. We see this as an aspect of quality.
However, it is the higher education institutions themselves that must be responsible for ensuring that the education programmes are of high quality. Rapid technological development also requires that higher education institutions constantly develop teaching methods and pedagogy. However, the ability of higher education institutions to handle this development is limited by the fact that higher education is heavily underfundedMapping the availability and use of course literature does not really contribute to any solution, but rather appears to be a cheap way of postponing the problem.
Distribution of competitive research grants
The budget for 2025 that the Riksdag decided on in November 2024 included an allocation of research funds that could be distributed later in the budget year. In research bill Research and innovation for the future, curiosity and benefit
The government presented the principles for how these funds were intended to be distributed. This involves a competitive tendering of the universities' base funding, which is distributed based on a number of indicators, including bibliometrics and external funds, as well as a new measure of "strategic recruitment".
The table below shows the amount of funding allocated to the state-run higher education institutions covered by the reform. Some higher education institutions also receive other funding, which in the table is called special initiatives, and this is included in the total contribution reported in the columns on the left. The column on the far right reports the increase that is solely due to the distribution of competitive base grants.
| Current appropriations, SEK | Grants, SEK | Supplement % | Special investments, SEK | Competitive contribution, % | |
| 2:4 Uppsala University | 2 535 797 000 | 26 477 000 | 1,04% | 12 000 000 | 0,57% |
| 2:6 Lund University | 2 642 263 000 | 29 471 000 | 1,12% | 12 000 000 | 0,66% |
| 2:8 University of Gothenburg | 1 882 329 000 | 12 348 000 | 0,66% | 0,66% | |
| 2:10 Stockholm University | 1 920 621 000 | 18 888 000 | 0,98% | 8 000 000 | 0,57% |
| 2:12 Umeå University: | 1 329 980 000 | 5 821 000 | 0,44% | 0,44% | |
| 2:14 Linköping University: | 1 149 738 000 | 9 901 000 | 0,86% | 2 500 000 | 0,64% |
| 2:16 Karolinska Institute | 1 888 686 000 | 14 261 000 | 0,76% | 0,76% | |
| 2:18 Royal Institute of Technology: | 2 011 242 000 | 111 395 000 | 5,54% | 102 000 000 | 0,47% |
| 2:20 Luleå University of Technology: | 467 765 000 | 45 167 000 | 9,66% | 42 000 000 | 0,68% |
| 2:22 Karlstad University: F | 307 884 000 | 1 108 000 | 0,36% | 0,36% | |
| 2:24 Linnaeus University: | 420 989 000 | 1 739 000 | 0,41% | 0,41% | |
| 2:26 Örebro University | 347 661 000 | 1 860 000 | 0,54% | 0,54% | |
| 2:28 Mid Sweden University: | 309 992 000 | 1 086 000 | 0,35% | 0,35% | |
| 2:30 Malmö University: | 323 684 000 | 1 211 000 | 0,37% | 0,37% | |
| 2:32 Mälardalen University: | 304 899 000 | 1 181 000 | 0,39% | 0,39% | |
| 2:34 Blekinge University of Technology | 118 379 000 | 363 000 | 0,31% | 0,31% | |
| 2:40 University of Borås: | 114 574 000 | 630 000 | 0,55% | 0,55% | |
| 2:42 Dalarna University | 118 193 000 | 429 000 | 0,36% | 0,36% | |
| 2:44 University of Gävle: | 125 498 000 | 426 000 | 0,34% | 0,34% | |
| 2:46 Halmstad University | 111 415 000 | 517 000 | 0,46% | 0,46% | |
| 2:48 Kristianstad University: | 107 351 000 | 230 000 | 0,21% | 0,21% | |
| 2:50 University of Skövde | 71 916 000 | 352 000 | 0,49% | 0,49% | |
| 2:52 University West | 101 197 000 | 566 000 | 0,56% | 0,56% | |
| 2:60 Södertörn University | 135 511 000 | 696 000 | 0,51% | 0,51% | |
| 2:62 National Defense University: | 46 185 000 | 7 000 000 | 15,16% | 7 000 000 | 0,00% |
The higher education institution that has benefited the most from the new principle of redistribution is Karolinska Institutet (+0,76%) while the higher education institution that has benefited the least is Kristianstad University (+0,21%). These are small changes, but if the same distribution principles are used over time, it can have effects at a system level.
The individual education providers Chalmers University of Technology, Jönköping University Foundation and Stockholm School of Economics are also included in the distribution, but the details of this distribution are not reported in the spring budget, other than that there will be a total contribution of SEK 21, of which SEK 750 is a special investment for Chalmers for an investment in battery technology and electrification. (An investment that also includes Uppsala University, Lund University, the Royal Institute of Technology and Luleå University of Technology with the same amount).
It should be mentioned here that this is not new funding, but rather an allocation of funds that the Riksdag has already decided to allocate.
Other redistributions
The budget includes a redistribution of 40 million kronor that the government can use to provide subsidies to the universities' holding companies. This is also an initiative that was presented in the research bill. The holding companies are described as "tools for universities and colleges to utilize that can contribute to more research results and innovations reaching the market and in a way support
Sweden's competitiveness”.
In addition, SEK 3 million is being allocated to develop training in leadership, conflict and crisis management that can be used in teacher and preschool teacher training.
The government also proposes to reallocate SEK 10 million to ensure that research on human rights can continue to be conducted at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute's Human Rights Library.
The student unions then?
The spring budget often becomes a parenthesis; it is in the autumn budget that governments usually make the major investments. Therefore, it is not surprising if some much-needed reforms are not included in the spring amending budget.
But the country's student unions had still hoped for an announcement about what would happen with the funding for student influence. According to the latest autumn budgets, the government plans to reduce student union funding by SEK 20 million from January 1, 2026. This will create a big hole in the finances of many student unions and therefore we had hopes that the government would be able to provide an announcement about what would happen. Unfortunately, we did not receive any new announcement and the concern remains.
The Minister of Finance presented the budget in the context of a very uncertain world situation. In uncertain times, higher education plays an important role. A well-educated population is better equipped for changes in the labor market, and the supply of skills is becoming an increasingly important issue if Sweden is to be able to compete in a changed global market with reduced exports to the USA. The student unions help to ensure that the education programs keep up with the times and that students actually get the knowledge they will need in the future. These are long-term challenges that will not necessarily be addressed in a spring amendment budget. For the sake of the students, and for Sweden's future as a knowledge nation, we hope that the autumn budget in September 2025 shows that the government is serious and is addressing the challenges that higher education is facing.