Scandinavia: Distance Learning Degrees?

Hermods

Hermods offers high-school courses and vocational degrees. They do not offer university-level degrees and I don't believe they offer anything in English. And most important of all, their reputation in Sweden is quite low. They are a for-profit school for students with no intention or potential for getting into better universities. Employers generally have a low opinion of the quality of a Hermods' education. Most students indicate that getting high grades is extremely easy and the workload is not challenging, which further feeds their reputation as a waste of time for anyone with even the slightest bit of potential in their lives. A Hermods high-school diploma is a red flag for many employers. Universities in Sweden do not consider the high school's reputation and only admit based on points. Foreign universities would have no idea about Hermods so it might not be a bad deal if you intend to apply to unis outside of Sweden.

 

This is an old thread but there are some new postings in it. Be aware that higher education, both b&m and distance, in Sweden is no longer free to non-Scandinavian or EU citizens or refugees. There might be some exceptions but none that I am aware of. I was informed that this change was due to a large number of affluent students from east Asia attending for free. Supposedly, they had a tendency to flaunt their wealth, which is strongly against cultural norms in Sweden and this generated backlash. I don't know if this was the primary reason.

 

No, that was not even a consideration at all in the decision to charge fees. In fact, I never heard of that happening and it certainly was not part of the conversation. The basic reasoning was that it was unreasonable to ask Swedish tax payers to fund the education of non-Swedish taxpayers, yet since the EU has free labor movement and open borders, it was logical to not charge EU citizens. There are many other EU countries who have done the same thing using the exact same logic.

 

It would not be part of the overt conversation; Swedes are far too polite for that.

If the reason was that Swedish taxpayers did not want to pay for foreigners (except for EU and EEA) B]why did they wait until 2011[/B] to do so? No, something else happened. That something, I think was the influx of students from outside Europe, particularly China and Russia. And this happened when the EU was expanding to include arguably third-world countries like Romania and Bulgaria. No Swedes are going to attend university in Bulgaria!

I was in the MBA course at BTH. Swedes would admit to tremendous resentment toward showy and drunken Chinese (and to a lesser extent Russians) but only if you knew them quite well.

Of course, as I wrote, I don't know if this was the only or primary reason.

 

No, it wasn't a reason at all. You may have heard a few people complain about that, but I guarantee you that the rude behavior of foreign students was not even remotely involved in the conversation. Swedes absolutely understand the value of bringing foreign students to Sweden to study. The main reason was that Sweden wanted to compete for the most talented students, rather than appealing mostly to those who want free education. Without tuition fees, the quality of students at Swedish universities was diluted and the global brand was damaged. Also, too many people were coming here, getting their degree, and then not staying in Sweden, all at the expense of Swedish taxpayers. So Swedes realized they were not getting a good return on their investment. They also saw that countries outside the EU, mainly the US, Canada, and Australia (where many Swedish students went to university) were charging massive tuition fees, and that did not seem fair. No, the bad behavior of a few foreign students might have been annoying for some people, but it was not at all a factor in the decision to charge fees. In fact, there are plenty of Swedish students who behave badly every day.

 

Over in the (former sticky) thread "MA in History Question?" there was mention of some graduate certificate called The Religious Roots of America ... or something likre that ... that was offered by a Swedish uni.

 

Actually, it was the Religious Roots of Europe.

 

Sweden

I could be wrong but that's the gen I heard. Perhaps you have better sources.

As for Canadians and Americans taking advantage of the free tuition, except for JYA students there were no other North Americans at BTH when I was was there and only a couple JYA students. Admittedly, Karlskrona is not exactly a Swedish "hot spot" but I met few enrolled Americans elsewhere in Sweden not on JYA from their home colleges and paying their local tuition. I met very, very few Americans enrolled as regular students. Consequently I find the claim that Swedes resented Nortes receiving a free education very hard to understand.

If Sweden wanted to compete for the best students, it would seem to be be more efficient to raise admission standards than raise fees, and more in line with Swedish values. Sometimes, people with money are not smarter than people without.

If fact, the vast majority of non-EU, non-EEA foreign students I met were from Third and Fourth World countries to whom SUK 100.000 (US$12,000) tuition must be an insurmountable barrier. Many of the students on the MBA program I was in could not even afford textbooks but instead used pirated editions available in pdf on the "deep web".

I know that Swedish students sometimes behave badly but most don't have enough money to get drunk often; in contrast with nouveau riche Chinese and Russians.

 

I moved to Sweden from the States in 2003. I have studied at five different universities here. Two programs were distance programs, one was a BA in Management at the Stockholm University Business School, and two were part of a graduate program in entrepreneurship that held classes at the Royal Institute of Technology and the Stockholm School of Economics. I have been living and working in Sweden since 2003. Yes, foreign students often act badly, especially rich kids from China and Russia. But again, that had nothing to do with the change in tuition structure for EU vs non-EU students. That decision was made largely as part of overall EU directives and structural reforms across the entire union. Many Europeans saw their taxes being invested in students who had no intention of remaining in the EU or the specific country after graduation and they felt that was wrong. This is not just about US students but all non-EU students. Fairly simple, really.

True, but the admission process in Sweden is very bureaucratic; there are no interviews, they do not care about the jobs you have had, the summer internships, the student committees, your varsity football letters, or the plays you were part of. They look only at the points you earned in high school and what subjects you studied. This is how they try to keep the admission process fair and open to all, because they understand that education is a basic human right available to everyone, not just the wealthy. This human right is established by the UN. It isn't perfect, and, being an American, I did not relate well to this approach in the beginning because it is not reflective of my culture. But I understand it and I see the flaws in my own culture's approach to university admissions. In addition, Sweden discovered that students who are serious about studying are more willing to pay for it while students who get it for free often do not invest themselves completely and the quality of their work is lower than that of students who make a financial sacrifice. This is seen in Swedish students, as well. So Swedes felt that if they make non-EU students pay for it, then only serious non-EU students would come to Swedish unis, which would raise the quality of the programs.

First off, try to avoid using the terms "third world" and "fourth world." Those are offensive colonialist terms. Second, the developing nations from which such students come have plenty of rich people who send their children abroad to study. Despite what we see in the commercials and on the news, not everyone is naked and covered with flies. Third, those students almost always get financial help if needed, from programs in their home nation, programs via international non-governmental agencies, and even Sweden.

Wow. Just. Wow. I now suspect you have never actually been to Sweden. It is one of the wealthiest societies on the planet and alcohol flows freely. You really don't seem to know what you're talking about with regards to Sweden and now you are just making silly blanket statements based on prejudice.