Many students left without housing benefits in August – student loan may help

Students will be transferred to a new student housing supplement scheme at the beginning of the 2025–2026 academic year. Starting from 1 August, the majority of students will be paid the housing supplement for students as their housing benefit, and they must apply for the student housing supplement separately. This means that students will no longer qualify for general housing allowance after 31 July 2025, and many students in higher education will not be paid any form of housing benefits in August.

“If you are a student and you could not get a job for the summer or if you have nothing left over from your summer job wages, you can do summer studies and apply for both student financial aid and the student housing supplement for August. The other option is to draw down your student loan because the first instalment for the coming academic year becomes available at the beginning of August. This means that you can use your student loan to cover your housing costs in August,” says Sari Miettunen, Coordinator at Kela.

You can freely decide whether you want to take out a student loan and how much you want to draw down at a time. The entire loan amount does not need to be drawn down in one go, which means that you can, for example, decide to draw down just enough to cover your housing costs in August. Even if you cannot get any other student financial aid in August, you can draw down your student loan.

You can check the maximum loan amount, the drawdown amounts, and the first and last drawdown dates in the OmaKela e-service. This information is also available in the decision Kela has issued to you on student financial aid.

Kela provides a student loan guarantee for one academic year at a time

Kela has issued decisions on student loan guarantees for the next academic year. The decisions have been sent to over 113 000 students who continue their studies in autumn. If you already have a student financial aid case pending at Kela, you will receive a decision on the loan guarantee in connection with the processing of your financial aid case. If you have opted out of paper mail, you can see Kela’s decision on your student loan guarantee in the OmaKela e-service.

“Students must agree with their bank on when and how they will draw down their student loan and on a schedule for paying it back. Because the loan is guaranteed by Kela, students do not have to put up any other security for the student loan,” says Miettunen.

Repayment of the student loan usually starts 6–18 months after the payment of student financial aid has ended. During your studies, the interest due on the loan is added to the loan capital, which means that the loan amount increases with the interest. After Kela has stopped paying student financial aid to you, the interest will be added to the loan capital for one more term. After that, you are responsible for paying the interest.

If you have not drawn down all student loan funds allocated for the academic year 2024–2025, you can do so before the end of July.