SU is an investment
SU is contantly being attacked and on this page you can follow our coverage of the attacks and our constructive suggestions to the contrary.
SU is an investment for society as a whole. It is a macroeconomic (long-term) investment that results in higher income for the individual in the long term and other derived benefits (See Afkast af Uddannelse, 2018).
In relation to the primarily microeconomic (short-term) outlook of the Finance Act, SU is therefore seen as an expense, but it is an irresponsible outlook to have and it is fundamentally wrong to see SU as anything other than a technocratic expense, but a societal investment.
That's why we also tell our friends in Europe about SU.
Young people should be able to be financially independent of their parents. We believe that autonomy and freedom are important elements and that the next generation should not be indebted.
SU debt is not the problem, the opt-out is!
In 2023, newly appointed minister Jeppe Bruus spoke out against know-it-alls when he said that Denmark cannot recover debts from foreign students ((DR: Udlændinge stikker af fra SU-gæld):
"By the end of 2022, 120,000 Danes had not repaid their SU debts as they were supposed to. This group owed a total of more than DKK 11 billion, which corresponds to DKK 91,600 per person on average." (DR's article)
But no party needs to think long and hard about the answer - because it lies in our own Opt-Out - and the state knows this, because former Minister of Justice Søren Pind gave the answer in 2018:
In 2018, it was concluded that you could get EU assistance, if Denmark:
1) convert the SU system into a civil or commercial law system and
2) hire local lawyers to take cases against indebted students.
Or as the Danish Debt Agency writes on their website: "If you want to pay your debt in full or in part, please call us on tel. +45 70 15 73 04."
If Danish politicians actually wanted to recover debt, we need to make international agreements or drop our Juridical Opt-out and not point fingers at students who take on debt to pay for private rents in an uncontrolled student housing market.
And finally, it's worth remembering that SU is used for: housing, food, insurance and transport. In other words, directly back into the Danish economy. So, it is an incentive for foreign students to choose Denmark over Italy, England or France.
Here, both the magazine for Engieneers and Danish Chamber of Commerce who lay out why international students are great assets: they pay tax on their SU, which they only get it if they work 10 hours a week and they create an international environment and network on the programmes.
