Position Paper
Commitee: ECOSOC
Issue: The question of affordable higher education and
addressing the problem of student debt
Country: Finland
Higher education, also known as tertiary education, is a critical step toward the nation's development in
aspects of social stability and economic improvement. The republic of Finland believes education is a
basic human right and everyone should have access to education. However, financial constraints often
come in the way of students and bear them from accessing university level education . One major issue is
student debt,students who choose to study at universities are trapped in thousands of dollars of student
debt. This problem is predominant in countries like the US and UK which have the highest student debt in
the world. Finlands position on this utterly dreadful crisis is that higher level education should be made
cheaper if not free for one’s own citizens atleast. Taking the example of countries like Germany,Sweden
and iceland who have proven that higher level education can be affordable for both national and
international students. Futhermore, we understand that the US and the UK have much more international
and local students applying. The load on universities in the US and the UK is much heavier and they
produce a lot research and development around the world but even with these reasons there are ways to
get around the student debt problem.
Finlands education system is one the finest in the world. We ourselves are an example of a modern
education system with little or no debt student debt. Finland’s literacy rate is the highest in the world
being a 100%. This shows our efficient policies that everyone gets equal educational opportunities and
don’t have to stay locked in a system in which they have to pay debt for the rest of their life. Finland
being a prime example of student-debt free education. Moreover, with the state funding your university
tuitioun, finland still has many high ranking universities like the University of Helsinki which is ranked
86 by US news and world report ranking (2021). This shows that other countries can afford to make
university education cheaper or free with having top class universities.
Lastly, just as no one will manufacture a lock without a key the same way every problem has its solution
and can be resolved. Even though finland is a very small nation in terms of land mass and population,
Finland’s gdp is still self sufficient for itself and ranks 46th in the world. This makes Finland able to fund
education for its countrymen. Providing free education is not an option for countries like Kenya which
need our help,countries like Finland, the US and the rest of the worlds rich countries. This the first
problem which needs to be addressed, poor countries cannot simply afford to give education to all its
citizens and especially if they have a huge population which is usually the case.Next,