There is some frustration involved in managing an international master’s program. Yes, frustration, and that is the least said. I wish I could have written the fulfilling or the rewarding or the exciting process of going through hundreds of student applications and ranking them and so on, but “frustrating” remains the most appropriate epithet. And this is not a complaint for having too much work on my hands: on the contrary, I really get a kick from peeking into the lives of such interesting people as our prospective students, so many of whom are really dynamic, enthusiastic, forward-looking types ready to get involved in the shaping of their own lives and of a better world (or at least a better Europe, since we are a program in European Studies).

The frustrating part comes from not being able to appropriately provide answers, solutions to these great students’ questions. Sweden is going through a revolution of its higher education. From next year on, tuition fees will be introduced for all non-EU students – this is the first time higher education is treated as a service for the rich and not as a human right. Already last year, the Swedish Migration Board toughened the criteria for obtaining a student visa. If admitted to a two-year program, a non-EU student must demonstrate they possess on their personal account (no sponsorship allowed) 146 000 Swedish crowns, which is about 15 000 euro. That is a lot of money to own as a 23-year old, wouldn’t you say? Migration rules and tuition fees combined make studying in Sweden practically impossible for regular people from outside the European Union.

More frustrating then to sit in this chair I am sitting, forced to explain to very qualified students that no, we cannot help them with any kind of scholarships, and no, there are no exceptions from the visa rules, and finally no, that Lund University has very limited housing and we cannot help them with finding apartments in the city. Lots of “no” and lots of limits to the capacities to change the system.

If students are going to invest so much money and effort to come here and be a part of our education, I feel under a very strong pressure to deliver excellent results that would make it all worth the trouble. And this is the problem when one looks at higher education in business terms, as a service that is bought by students. One’s pedagogical and academic work is being judged by criteria outside the academia – “return on investment” and “job with an international company” are not usually part of my world. On the contrary, if university studies are seen as a natural right for personal development and enrichment, the measure of success would be different: fulfillment, learning, inner satisfaction, capacity to select, process and criticize information, higher creativity. Sweden was the last haven of the perspective of the academia as a right. Now, like pretty much everywhere else, a university diploma is not a step towards intellectual development and learning, but a business purchase, something between a Louis Vuitton bag and 10 000 worth of shares at the London Stock Exchange.

Anamaria Dutceac Segesten