The Riksdag has elected a new Prime Minister and adopted a state budget for 2022.
After several ifs and buts, the Social Democrats' new party leader Magdalena Andersson was released as prime minister. This means that Sweden still has a government in which the Social Democrats and the Green Party are included.
However, the government's budget did not go through. Instead, it was the Moderates, the Sweden Democrats and the Christian Democrats' joint budget that received the most votes. This means some changes in 2022. Here we go through how it affects the students.
Reduced housing construction for students
The new budget decides that "appropriations for building subsidies and energy efficiency improvements will be abolished." In plain text, this means that the investment support for the construction of rental housing and housing for students will no longer exist in 2022.
The original investment support was introduced in 2007 to increase the construction of rental apartments and housing for students. The rules and amounts have since changed. The investment support was temporarily abolished in 2019 when the Riksdag voted in favor of the Moderates and the Christian Democrats' budget proposal. However, it was reintroduced the following year as part of the January agreement. But now it will disappear again.
For the students, this is bad news. The housing shortage for students is a major obstacle for many who want to start studying. Sweden has a large "construction debt" - too few homes have been built for a long time - and it is important that construction now catches up. SFS has seen that investment support has promoted housing construction and reduced rents in newly built student housing. Now the positive development is coming to an end.
The decision does far-reaching damage that is difficult to repair. Jerking creates a great deal of uncertainty for the construction companies. Planned construction projects risk not getting rid of. Even if the investment support is reintroduced in the future, it will be difficult to plan: Building homes will take several years and many construction companies will worry that the investment support will not remain when it is time to apply.
Work environment - an issue also for students
The new budget contains an increase of SEK 60 million for work environment issues. The increase consists for the most part of SEK 50 million to the Swedish Work Environment Authority, in order to counteract work-related crime, strengthen its supervisory work and carry out an increased number of workplace inspections. In addition, SEK 10 million will be provided to the Swedish Agency for Safety and Health at Work for "knowledge compilations in the field of work environment and to investigate the pandemic's consequences for care staff and employees who have worked from home for a longer period".
SFS has requested increased support for the higher education institutions' work environment work. Students are overrepresented in terms of mental health problems and the work environment is a contributing factor. Therefore, it is important that the work environment work at the higher education institutions is better. But the higher education institutions have said that they lack knowledge and tools to improve the students' work environment. Therefore, outside support is needed.
However, it is unclear how much of the 60 million will benefit the higher education sector. The Work Environment Act applies to approximately 5 million employees and 400 students. The Swedish Work Environment Authority and the Swedish Agency for Work Environment Knowledge are thus responsible for a large area and not all initiatives affect students.
How is the CSN interest rate affected?
Earlier this year, the government announced that the interest rate on student loans will increase tenfold, both for previous and new student loans. Many have been critical of the proposal. The criticism has come from students, student organizations, trade unions and several parliamentary parties. Many probably thought that the opposition would want to withdraw the interest rate increase in its shadow budgets.
However, the interest rate increase will not take effect until 2023. The proposal is under investigation, which will be completed in April 2022 and a decision is awaited thereafter. This means that it is not decided by the budget from the Moderates, Sweden Democrats and Christian Democrats that was voted through for 2022.
But the budget contains forecasts for 2023 and 2024, it is somewhat disappointing that the interest rate increase is not even mentioned.
Other reforms
In other respects, the government's investments seem to remain. These include investments in accessibility and special educational support, student health and increased compensation for care actors who receive VFU students. Other reforms, such as the new adjustment study grant, will not be introduced until 2023 and will therefore not be affected by the state budget for 2022.