Non-EU Spouses of Finnish Citizens - Tuition Fee Exemption Denials

XAMK ignored a formal request for an administrative decision and then ended my study right is this happening nationwide I am a non-EU student at XAMK and my husband is a Finnish citizen. Our marriage is officially registered in Finland. Under Section 13a of the Universities of Applied Sciences Act, tuition fees are not collected from a family member of a Finnish citizen. According to Section 37 of the Foreginer Act, a spouse is considered a family member. But XAMK decided that our Finnish marriage certificate and proof of my husband’s citizenship were insufficient. They required a family-ties residence permit or another document issued by Migri. I currently have a student A permit, while my family-ties permit application has been pending since 13 July 2026. On 27 July, my husband submitted a formal written request specifically asking XAMK to issue an administrative decision a hallintopäätös on my tuition-fee liability. This was not an informal inquiry or a request for general legal advice. We requested an official, reasoned and appealable administrative decision so that we could challenge XAMK’s interpretation through the proper legal procedure. XAMK never issued that decision. On 25 August, our lawyer formally repeated the demand: either confirm my statutory tuition-fee exemption or issue a reasoned and appealable decision. XAMK did not respond to our lawyer either. An education counsellor at the Ministry of Education and Culture also told us by phone that, in her legal view, a Migri-issued family permit was not required. She contacted XAMK and reportedly followed up several times, but XAMK did not respond to her. Because XAMK continued to classify me as liable for tuition fees, Peppi showed the fee as unpaid and I could not enrol as present. On 4 September, I received an automated email stating that my study right had ended retroactively on 31 July because I had either failed to enrol or failed to provide payment or an exemption document. The email did not clearly identify the actual reason, the decision-maker, the legal provisions applied or the appeal procedure. Instead, I was told to apply for restoration of my study right, pay a €50 fee and potentially wait until the next semester. Under Finland’s Administrative Procedure Act, an administrative matter must be handled without undue delay. By 4 September, 39 days had passed since our formal request for a hallintopäätös, yet XAMK had allowed serious consequences to take effect without first issuing the requested decision. This may not be an isolated case. The Ministry told us that I am not the only student facing this situation and that similar cases have been raised elsewhere. That makes this a possible nationwide problem rather than merely a disagreement between one student and XAMK. We have not found clear public guidance from Finnish universities of applied sciences explaining how a non-EU spouse of a Finnish citizen can prove this exemption without first receiving a family-ties permit from Migri. Why have the universities not updated or clarified their policies despite knowing that these cases exist? Are they simply relying on outdated common instructions because changing the procedure would require additional work? Or does the restrictive interpretation continue because it results in more tuition fees being collected? I genuinely do not know, but the question deserves public scrutiny. We are now submitting an urgent request for rectification and asking XAMK to suspend the enforcement of the loss of my study right. Would contacting Yle or another national media outlet be useful? Should we also contact the Parliamentary Ombudsman or the Chancellor of Justice about XAMK’s failure to issue the requested administrative decision before allowing these consequences to occur? I would especially like to hear from: students who have faced the same problem at another Finnish university; people who have received a formal decision concerning this exemption; lawyers or journalists familiar with higher-education administration; anyone who has brought a similar case before an administrative court. If this is happening to students across Finland, it should not remain hidden as a series of separate individual cases!