Up to 200 euros cheap­er: stu­dents’ liv­ing expens­es are the low­est in Oulu

In a recent com­par­i­son con­duct­ed by Raha­laitos, Oulu was found to be the cheap­est uni­ver­si­ty city in Fin­land for stu­dents in terms of liv­ing expens­es. In addi­tion to Oulu, Vaasa, Jyväskylä, Joen­suu, Turku, Rovanie­mi, Tam­pere and Helsin­ki were includ­ed in the com­par­i­son.

The com­par­i­son focused on stu­dents’ liv­ing expens­es and took into account month­ly rent, use of pub­lic trans­port, gro­cery shop­ping, lunch meals with stu­dent dis­count, the cost of sports ser­vices offered by the uni­ver­si­ty and the stu­dent union mem­ber­ship fee.

In almost every cat­e­go­ry, Oulu stood out as either the most afford­able or the sec­ond most afford­able city. Helsin­ki turned out to be the most cost­ly uni­ver­si­ty city in the com­par­i­son. The dif­fer­ence in liv­ing expens­es between Oulu, the cheap­est city in terms of total costs, and Helsin­ki, the most expen­sive city, was about 200 euros per month.

The clear­est dif­fer­ence between Oulu and the most expen­sive uni­ver­si­ty city in each cat­e­go­ry was in aver­age month­ly rent and the price of the uni­ver­si­ty’s sports ser­vices. Accord­ing to the com­par­i­son, the aver­age rental price for a stu­dio apart­ment in Helsin­ki is 665 euros per month, while the aver­age month­ly rent for a stu­dio apart­ment in Oulu is 477 euros.

The annu­al price of sports ser­vices offered by the uni­ver­si­ty is only 50 euros in Oulu, while in Helsin­ki you have to pay 176 euros a year for the ser­vices.

Edu­ca­tion and hous­ing in Oulu

Oulu offers edu­ca­tion on sev­er­al dif­fer­ent lev­els, from voca­tion­al edu­ca­tion and upper sec­ondary edu­ca­tion to aca­d­e­m­ic degrees. In addi­tion, the invest­ments in research and devel­op­ment per capi­ta in Oulu are the biggest in Fin­land.

Youth­ful Oulu is a con­stant­ly devel­op­ing city and the fastest grow­ing urban region in North­ern Europe, which offers, besides edu­ca­tion, the oppor­tu­ni­ty for excit­ing stu­dent life and oth­er leisure activ­i­ties.

In Oulu, you can live in the heart of the city cen­tre, by the riv­er or a in a mod­ern sub­urb, with­out your hous­ing costs climb­ing through the roof. It is often said that Oulu offers some­thing that many oth­ers do not: the oppor­tu­ni­ties of a big city com­bined with the ben­e­fits of a small com­mu­ni­ty.

Read more about the edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties offered by Oulu here: Edu­ca­tion – Oulu

Find out more about liv­ing in Oulu here: Live in Oulu – safe­ly, inex­pen­sive­ly and more com­fort­ably

Source: Opiskelun kus­tan­nuk­set – Mis­sä opiskelet edullis­es­ti – Raha­laitos (avail­able in Finnish)