Yleinen 
The Ministry of Education and Culture has decided to carry out a pilot on study voucher for open higher education, as recorded in the Government’s budget proposal. Commissioned by the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Digivisio 2030 programme will implement the digital study voucher solution for the shared Opin.fi service of Finnish higher education institutions. The pilot is due to start with the joint application process in spring 2026.
The study voucher is a 30-credit payment instrument for open studies in universities. Its aim is to give young people who have not been admitted to a university or a university of applied sciences an opportunity to complete open studies free of charge.
Open studies are a way to build competence for future joint applications, and some studies can also be used to apply for a degree programme through the open path. As such, in the future, an increasing number of young people would be able to access higher education courses even before they receive a place in a degree programme.
This is a temporary pilot project of the Ministry of Education and Culture. The aim is to launch the pilot for the joint application process of spring 2026.
The plan is to first grant the study voucher to persons who complete their first upper secondary qualification after 1 December 2025, are under 29 years old on the day of graduation, and applied for a study place in the spring 2026 joint application process but were not admitted or did not accept the place they received.
Digivisio makes progress with the digital solution for the study voucher
The Digivisio programme office started preparing the study voucher solution for the Opin.fi service in autumn 2025. The planning has involved experts from universities and system development partners, as well as learners.
In the planned solution, the study voucher for open universities would primarily be implemented as a payment method. While a young person would normally pay cash via their online bank when registering for open studies, those entitled to a study voucher will in the future be able to use it as a payment method. Instead of going to their online bank, the person using a study voucher confirms the fee included in the enrolment by paying it from their study voucher balance in the Opin.fi service.
The study voucher will be available through Opin.fi in August 2026 once the university admissions in the joint application process and admissions from the waitlist have ended. The voucher can be used as a payment method for open studies at Finnish universities and universities of applied sciences found in the Opin.fi service for two years. The service contains thousands of open courses from all 35 universities under the administrative branch of the Ministry of Education and Culture. These courses can be purchased with the study voucher