Response to interpellation 2025/26:92 on the importance of smaller universities for the whole country
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
1 L argues that education and research should be characterized by high quality and that the government is making historically large investments in excellence 1. 2 L believes that campus studies should be the core of the academic tradition and is skeptical of the increased scope of distance education as they have lower throughput 2. 3 S argues that smaller educational institutions are a prerequisite for Sweden to hold together 3. 3 4 S believes that the government's policy reduces resources to smaller educational institutions and deprioritizes distance education, which affects people in rural areas 3 4. 4 5 S argues that distance education is crucial for access to education and justice 4 5. 3 S argues that the government's policy makes it harder for people to grow 3. 5 S argues that the state's centralization risks weakening regional knowledge environments 5. 5 S argues that distance education is an important part of lifelong learning 5. 6 S argues that the government's response confirms that they continue to deprioritize distance education 6. 6 S claims that smaller educational institutions deliver high quality and good connection to the labor market 6. 6 S argues that the government's policy disadvantages these through reduced grants, increased bureaucracy, and the outsourcing of basic grants 6. 6 S wants to invest more in research and infrastructure to ensure excellence and breadth throughout the country 6. 7 S emphasizes that distance education is important for people of mature age and that reduced resources threaten the possibility of studies outside major cities 7. 8 9 S argues that the government's centralization harms the regions' development power and competitiveness 8 9. 9 S wants to see knowledge as an investment in people 9.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Gymnasie-, högskole- och forskningsministern Lotta Edholm (L)
Mr. Speaker! Peder Björk has asked me how I view the role of smaller universities in ensuring education, research, and skills supply throughout the country and whether I intend to take any initiatives to strengthen the smaller universities. Furthermore, Peder Björk has asked me how I and the government view distance courses and independent courses as part of higher education and lifelong learning, and whether I intend to take any measures based on my view on the issue.
My and the government's view is that education and research within higher education should be permeated by high quality. Scientific excellence is crucial for Sweden to be able to strengthen its competitiveness and position as one of the world's leading research nations. High-quality education increases the healthcare sector's, the school's, and the business community's access to well-educated staff and strengthens individuals' opportunity to establish themselves on the labor market. It also prepares the students well for a long working life.
The investments that the government is making therefore focus on quality. Excellent research and high-quality education can be conducted at both larger and smaller educational institutions.
The government, through the latest research and innovation bill (prop. 2024/25:60), is making historically large investments in high-quality research. This includes competitive funds for universities and colleges, investments in strategic recruitment, an increased investment in centers of excellence, and a larger investment in groundbreaking research at the highest international level.
To strengthen the conditions for high quality in education and educational offerings, the government continues to prioritize increased compensation amounts for several educational areas. It is an important signal that high quality shall be in focus. The government's quality initiatives within the educational areas of science and technology and humanities, society, law, and theology create conditions for increased quality within the educations that are largest within higher education. This means that nearly three-quarters of the students receive a share of the quality initiatives.
There are good reasons why education on campus has been the core of the academic tradition for a long time. The Government believes that it should continue to be so. Distance education can in some cases be important to increase the possibility of further education so that students can combine work and family life with studies. The societal development and transition in the coming years mean that more professionals will need competence development. It is therefore important that there is a relevant, qualified and resource-efficient educational offer that can be provided to persons in need of transition and continuing education. Therefore, the Government invests, for example, in short courses for professionals.
Regardless of the form in which the education is provided, universities and colleges have a task to maintain high educational quality. It is the universities and colleges themselves that are responsible for organizing and developing the operations and the educational offerings in order to achieve high quality in the education, strengthen the supply of skills for the labor market's needs, and ensure that resources are utilized effectively.
Peder Björk (S)
Mr. Speaker! The smaller universities and colleges are actually a prerequisite for Sweden to hold together. They contribute to education, research, and skills supply throughout the entire country, not just in the large cities.
Mittuniversitetet is a clear example of that. Here, a strong education with breadth and strong research environments have been built up in areas such as digitalization, sustainability, and forestry – areas that are completely central to the green transition and for the business sector in northern Sweden. The university is also well-anchored in the region's development and collaborates with both municipalities and companies. The university simply lives up to its vision of being a global university with regional commitment where one researches and educates for life.
Mr. Speaker! The SD government's policy, however, goes in the exact opposite direction to this. The funding and resources for education are decreasing for Mittuniversitetet and for several other smaller institutions. At the same time, the government signals that distance education and independent courses shall be deprioritized. This hits particularly hard against the smaller universities and against those people who do not live near a campus.
Mr. Speaker! The size of the proportion that proceeds to higher education is namely directly linked to where in the country one lives. In Danderyd, it is 79 percent who have started higher education studies at age 24, while the corresponding figure for the ten municipalities that have the lowest transition rate is 10–20 percent. Besides the social composition, therefore, both geographical proximity to higher education and the situation on the local labor market affect who chooses to study further.
For many who live in rural areas or are in the middle of their working lives, access to specifically distance education is actually absolutely crucial for the possibility of further education or, for that matter, changing careers in the middle of life. To weaken those opportunities is not an investment in quality; it is to make it harder for people to grow.
Mr. Speaker! Higher education and research are crucial for Sweden as a knowledge nation but also for giving people the opportunity to educate themselves, develop, and get a job. As a small, export-dependent country, our innovative power in Sweden actually builds on the fact that we have research that both meets societal challenges and is driven by curiosity. New ideas must be able to be developed and commercialized for the benefit of both the business sector and society as a whole.
We Social Democrats believe that education and research are tools to build a strong Sweden, not costs to be cut. Why does the SD government not see that?
Lena Bäckelin (S)
Mr. Speaker! I thank Peder Björk for this important interpellation.
I want to speak from a perspective that many of us in the interior, especially those of us in Härjedalen, feel deeply in our everyday lives. For us, education is not just about personal development. It is about the opportunity to live and work in the entire country. It is about justice.
Mittuniversitetet has for a long time been an engine for development in our part of Sweden. Through its research, its collaboration with municipalities, regions and companies, and not least its distance education, the university has made it possible for people to study and develop regardless of where they live.
I am myself an example of that. When I lost my job in the 90s, I was given the opportunity to study via distance learning. Since then, I have managed to live in my home region and continue to work there for 30 years.
For many in Jämtland and Västernorrland counties, for example in my home municipality Härjedalen, this is crucial here. In these areas, there are many people who have qualified as teachers, preschool teachers, and nurses thanks to Mittuniversitetet, which offers distance education, and who probably would not have been able to move to a larger city to study because of where they have family, spouse, jobs, and roots. Precisely for that reason, the possibility to study at a distance means so much.
When the government now chooses to signal that distance education shall be deprioritized, it hits small educational institutions, such as Mittuniversitetet, hard. It also hits us who live in rural areas hard. What does that actually mean? Well, it means that access to education becomes uneven, that it becomes harder for young people to pursue higher education, that the supply of competence for healthcare, school, and business deteriorates, and that the transition becomes harder when one loses their job, especially in these times with extremely high unemployment.
Mr. Speaker! My university shows and has shown that it is possible to combine quality with accessibility and that world-class research and education can exist even outside of major cities. But it requires long-term and fair conditions. That the government wants to redistribute to larger campuses from smaller ones risks weakening the entire country's development power. For Sweden to continue to be a country built on knowledge and for the whole country to develop, higher education must become accessible throughout the country.
We Social Democrats stand up for the smaller universities, for distance education, for research, and for people's right to educate themselves regardless of where they live. My question to the Minister is: Does the Minister intend to continue to support and allocate resources for development to the smaller universities and also distance education?
Carina Ödebrink (S)
Mr. Speaker! I thank Peder Björck for this very important interpellation.
Sweden faces major societal challenges: global competition, the green and digital transition, and the sharpened security policy situation. We are placing entirely new demands on our ability to educate, research, and develop the knowledge that business and welfare need. This applies to the whole country, not just the large cities.
Here, education policy, research policy, and regional development policy are closely linked. When the state centralizes and cuts back, we risk weakening the strong regional knowledge environments that have been built up over decades. The labor market depends on more people being able to educate themselves near where they live as part of lifelong learning. Therefore, distance education is an important part in this context.
Jönköping University is a clear example of why this is so crucial. Jönköping County is one of Sweden's most export-intensive counties – number four in the country. It is also the most industry-dependent county; around 25 percent are employed within the manufacturing industry. The demands on competence, digitalization, and technical development are high and growing rapidly. Here, the educational institutions play an important role. The business sector in our county is increasingly building on new technology, sustainable production processes, and digitalization. It requires research and education close to the companies. It requires educational institutions that do not only educate but also develop.
Högskolan i Jönköping delivers exactly this. It researches, educates, and collaborates with companies. It is internationally profiled and is one of the few Swedish colleges that participate in the EU's university cooperation. It builds competence and attracts talent to the region and Sweden. Jönköping International Business School is internationally recognized, and the master's program in International Financial Analysis is ranked among the best in the world. This does not only have a prestige value but actually also constitutes a competitive advantage for Sweden. With small resources, our institution performs at the level of or better than several of our existing universities. A small tip to the Minister is that Jönköping and we who come from there work hard so that our institution can one day be able to become a university. But that is not what we are debating here today.
I would like to ask the Minister: How does the government intend to ensure that education and research policy continues to be closely linked with regional development policy and that education and research are available throughout the country? If we ensure that distance education is an important part of lifelong learning and that we have a country that holds together when it comes to higher education, institutions such as Högskolan i Jönköping can continue to contribute to skills supply, innovation, and sustainable growth throughout the country. I believe that assurance is crucial both for the business sector and for Sweden's competitiveness.
Gymnasie-, högskole- och forskningsministern Lotta Edholm (L)
Mr. Speaker! The interpellor has posed a long series of important questions in this area. I would like to begin by saying a few words about distance education, which has completely exploded in Sweden.
What we can see is that there is lower throughput and higher dropout rates for those who study remotely. This is likely partly due to the fact that remote education actually places much higher demands on an individual than studies on campus. It is simply harder. One sits alone in one's room, has difficulty getting support from teachers, and so on.
I and the government believe that distance education should be for those whom the interpellator primarily highlights, that is to say people who are in the middle of life and who may need to change tracks in their professional careers or receive further education and skills development, something that I believe will increase significantly in the coming years. In that case, distance studies are excellent.
But it must not be that distance learning replaces on-campus education for young people who do not have a family, do not have a profession, and have not been educated previously. Higher education is something other than sitting at home in front of a screen. It is to meet other students on campus, to clash opinions with others, to be able to have a dialogue with your teachers, and so on. That is why I and the government are skeptical that distance education has increased so much in scope. That there is lower throughput, I mean, is something we must take seriously.
When it comes to higher education and research, it is the institutions themselves that decide how they want to use their funds. There is nothing that says a small institution conducts worse research than a larger institution. Research grants are sought in competition. This can benefit both smaller and larger institutions. It is still important to establish that.
It is the same thing when it comes to quality in education. The government does not believe that we should just expand and expand the number of places. We must also ensure that there is quality for those young people who choose to study at universities and colleges.
That is why we are now making major quality investments that cover approximately three-quarters of the students at our higher education institutions. It is so that they can actually receive an education that is worth the name. It shall be characterized by high quality where they have met teachers and have had physical teaching to a greater extent than is the case many times today.
Peder Björk (S)
Mr. Speaker! From the Minister's answer, I can state that the government continues to deprioritize distance education even moving forward. That is an important message on that specific issue to everyone listening.
If it is indeed as the Minister still wishes to assert, that is to say that one does not want to make any distinction between smaller and larger educational institutions, it is utterly strange that it is the smaller institutions that now consistently receive significantly smaller grants and resources when it comes to both teaching and research.
For Mittuniversitetet, this means roughly 20 million kronor less for research and teaching. It will be even less in the coming years if this government's policy continues to prevail.
Mr. Speaker! Unlike the Minister and the SD government, we Social Democrats assert that the smaller universities are capable of both delivering high-quality education and having a good connection to the labor market, which the government obviously does not believe.
I will just give one example of this, just taken from Mittuniversitetet. Svenskt Näringsliv's higher education survey for this year showed that, for example, students with a bachelor's degree from the economics program have an establishment rate of almost 93 percent three years after graduation. That is the highest in the entire country, Mr. Speaker. But the government continues to punish the small universities and colleges.
It is no coincidence that the regions that have a strong university also have a strong labor market. But the government does not seem to see this when they now continue to weaken the institutions of higher education that exist outside the large cities. When one does that, one also risks weakening the development of entire regions.
Mr. Speaker! That is why we Social Democrats are so clear that our policy for higher education and research means that excellence and breadth shall exist throughout the entire country. It is also why we want to invest 700 million kronor more than the government in research, innovation, and research infrastructure.
The government's research policy is heading in the opposite direction. The government has partially postponed important investments. But it has also removed goals regarding equality and social impact and, furthermore, introduced a competitive bidding process for basic research grants and in this way disadvantaged the smaller educational institutions. This will result in more bureaucracy, less academic freedom, and worse conditions for the smaller universities.
Mr. Speaker! The government should see the smaller universities and colleges as an asset and not a problem. Those universities and colleges are an engine for growth, equality, and faith in the future in the whole country.
Lena Bäckelin (S)
Mr. Speaker! As a resident of the inland of Norrland, I know how important Mittuniversitetet is for us in the inland, as I previously stated. I have my own experiences of it.
I also think that the minister expresses a somewhat outdated view on distance education. All studies require focus, and distance studies no less. That is probably true. But when it comes to study groups, one is not sitting alone more than one does on campus.
We have study groups, and we have supervision. It is a flexible way to learn. This applies especially in older age when the external demands might mean more than for a young person.
Thanks to the university's investment in distance education, people have been able to continue their studies, change jobs, and strengthen their competence without having to move and leave their homes or their families and perhaps move 50–100 miles away.
When the government now reduces resources to smaller universities and questions the distance education, that very possibility is threatened. It risks making higher education a big-city issue again.
My university has also built up strong research environments that connect to our regions and our reality. This applies, for example, to the forestry industry, the tourism industry, sustainability and digitalization. It is central to our regions' future.
I think I have received an answer from the Minister to my question here. It will be cut, and Mittuniversitetet will be weakened. It will affect us significantly in rural areas and in the inland of Norrland.
Carina Ödebrink (S)
Mr. Speaker! Now we have quite a few people sitting and listening to the interpellation debate in the gallery. It is important to be clear. I want to be clear about what I heard the Minister say: We cannot just expand and expand. We cannot have as many places as we want within higher education at our universities, but we must also ensure quality.
I mean as a social democrat that they do not need to be in contradiction with each other. We must have higher education throughout the country to hold Sweden together. But naturally, all higher education must have a high quality. It does not have to be in contradiction at all. The conservative narrative is a bit typical, where the story is about either/or.
Jönköping University shows why the entire country needs a strong academic infrastructure. Here, there is research close to the needs of industry, close to the export companies, and close to the reality where the supply of competence determines whether companies can grow or are forced to slow down.
When the government pulls the centralization lever, there is a risk of harming the parts of Sweden that contribute most to our exports, our industry, and our innovative power. Högskolan i Jönköping and other regional colleges and universities carry a large part of the country's development power. They create competitiveness where it is actually needed. They do so in close cooperation with companies and regions.
My conclusion, Mr. Speaker, is straightforward: The government must stop centralizing away the knowledge power that exists outside the major cities. If we are serious about the whole of Sweden living and developing, it requires a policy that strengthens, not weakens.
Gymnasie-, högskole- och forskningsministern Lotta Edholm (L)
Mr. Speaker! The members here believe that we can continue to expand the places at colleges and universities without it affecting the quality in any way.
The Social Democrats' own budget alternative shows that it is not possible, because you do not use the word quality a single time in your budget alternative. It shows with desirable clarity that the Social Democrats want to expand the number of places even more than what has already been done, but at the same time, one is not prepared to invest in quality.
The fact is that Sweden has a very low proportion of teaching time at our higher education institutions. It is a major problem that students do not receive enough instruction. We can see this, for example, in something that is close to me, namely the teacher training programs. This lowers the quality of the education, and we must ensure that we raise the quality. Three-quarters of the students in Sweden are now covered by the initiatives the government is making to promote quality at our higher education institutions. I mean that it is the right way to go.
When it comes to distance education, I think it is important to understand that it has increased very sharply in recent years. We also see that we have lower throughput in distance education than in courses scheduled at campus, at our higher education institutions. I mean that we must draw some conclusions from this.
On the other hand, distance education should of course exist for people who are in the middle of life and who need further education or need to transition in their working lives. The Government is now planning to make changes that will make it easier to achieve this.
But it does not serve any purpose to simply expand. We see now how unemployment among academics is increasing in Sweden. That is because many young people have received an education for which it is then difficult to get a job from the outside. It may be due to the fact that there has been all too low quality in the educations. We need to invest in quality, but we do not need to invest in heavily expanding colleges and universities.
Peder Björk (S)
Mr. Speaker! If this government does not want to expand higher education across the country, one still does not need to go to the other extreme and cut back on higher education across the entire country. That is exactly what is happening now when the government consistently cuts the appropriations for research and teaching at the smaller universities and at the colleges across the country.
To everyone listening to the debate: Please go and check the application pressure for universities and colleges! It has never been as high as it is now. It is not the case that there are a lot of places left over that no one wants, but on the contrary: There are very many who today do not get into the education they would like to attend in order to study what they want and perhaps also need depending on where they are in life and how the labor market looks.
In that situation, the government chooses to consistently cut back on colleges and smaller universities. It is a policy that goes completely against what Sweden as a country should do, which is to invest in education in order to thus be competitive for the future.
Mr. Speaker! We need to ensure that higher education can meet the challenges we face ahead, and that means doing so with fair conditions for the universities. More opportunities for studies and research must be provided, and we must send a signal that we want a society that sees knowledge as an investment both in Sweden as a country and, above all, in people.
Gymnasie-, högskole- och forskningsministern Lotta Edholm (L)
Mr. Speaker! This is a wonderful debate to have because it truly shows that we are all committed to Sweden being a nation that conducts education and research of the absolute highest quality. We must do that, because that is our opportunity to compete.
Therefore, it is also important that a very large proportion of the research funds are distributed based on competition depending on quality. It is important that we continue with this.
When it comes to distance education, I maintain that they have lower throughput. We must learn something from that. But we must also learn from what is good about distance education. This applies, for example, to those educations that target people in the middle of life who have a family and who have a job but who want to further their education or study in a completely new area. There, distance education is excellent. But we cannot just continue to expand them and believe that we thereby maintain the quality, for that has not been the case so far.
We must ensure that we get educational institutions that provide an education that, above all, gives young people a really good education and a good foundation to stand on. In that case, higher quality in the education is needed and not just more places. Sweden gains nothing from that.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.