Education: Another record in degree numbers
The growing trend in the number of degrees continued, and more degrees were completed at Laurea in 2024 than ever before: a total of 1,942 Bachelor’s degrees 440 Master’s degrees. An increasingly large share of students completed their Bachelor's degrees at Laurea within the target time of 3.5 years or faster. The average of responses to all questions in graduation stage student feedback also broke a new record in 2024. The number of credits completed as open UAS and other non-degree studies increased slightly from the previous year to approx. 51,600. Laurea also achieved a record-breaking result in the number of credits produced in collaboration between higher education institutions: students from other higher education institutions completed more than 15,500 credits in total at Laurea. The 3AMK Alliance’s collaboration area of learning activities offered 35 joint competence modules arranged by three universities of applied sciences.
The strategic development of Laurea’s education activities continued productively in critical change projects that created operating models to strengthen the competence-based approach, enhance the quality of learning and study efficiency, increase non-degree education, and expand access to high-quality open digital studies.
As a result of long-term development work, Laurea Smart online store was launched in April 2024, which streamlined the purchasing path of continuous learning customers and harmonised the functions of internal services associated with the online store. Laurea Smart online store offers workplace-oriented education for both individual customers and organisations. The online store has already registered more than 100,000 unique visits.
Digivisio 2030, Finnish higher education institutions' joint project, progressed to the beta version of the first service, opin.fi platform, in 2024. Laurea played an active role in the front line of the programme, co-creating and testing the service in the first deployment group of higher education institutions.
In 2024, a service channel for cross-institutional higher education studies was introduced. This channel enables degree students to browse studies offered at other higher education institutions and to register for them in the Pakki service of their home institution.
In February 2024, the Ministry of Education and Culture granted Laurea EUR 2.9 million in discretionary funding for a total of 119 additional nursing degree starting places for first-time applicants. The students had to accept the study place in 2024. Launched on a fast schedule, the separate application processes for the new intake groups of autumn semester 2024 were successful, and all additional starting places were filled.
Katri Ojasalo, Vice President (education)
Key Figures in 2024
- Degrees completed in 2024
Bachelor's degrees: 1,942
Master's degrees: 440 - Credits completed at the open university of applied sciences: 51,669
- Number of students (September 2023):
Bachelor's degrees: 9,177
Master's degrees: 1,797 - Employment: 95.4% of those who completed a university of applied sciences degree were in employment a year after graduation (graduates of 2022)
- Overall appeal* in 2024: 4,19
Bachelor's degrees: 4,39
Master's degrees: 3,40 - Number of applicants to Laurea (Applicants who had Laurea education as an option for application.): 49,896
*Primary applicants per starting place for study programmes taught in Finnish in the joint application process of spring and autumn. (Note: Since 2020, study programmes taught in English have not been placed in the order of preference.)