It's the same in Finland, at least in universities. If you don't pass your courses, the state stops paying the student benefits[1], but you can stay at the university. There is another, very low number of courses you need to pass every year in order to stay in, but that is very low indeed, it's only meant to keep registers clean of people not studying at all.
1: That's right, Finns are paid to study. I think students in most of the Nordic countries are.
"Finns are paid to study. I think students in most of the Nordic countries are."
There are scholarships (all over Europe) that depend on acquiring a minimal number of Bologna-credits, and those (at least in some countries) existed since the foundation of the higher education itself.
In most (all? not sure) of the Nordic countries it's not scholarships (well, you have scholarships too), but at least used to be blanket grants to everyone that qualifies for a university place, combined with cheap loans.
The grants when I studied in Norway were not huge, but they were unconditional for some number of years as long as you could document that you were still studying (basically it was sufficient to sign up to a couple of courses and attending the exams, whether or not you passed). This was 20 years ago - details may have changed.
I lived on my grants + student loan for the first year of my first startup, by continuing to sign up for a couple of courses which I didn't actually study for (attended may be two lectures...)
Yes, this is indeed the case. For a typical university student, you get a grant of 335,32€ a month and a up to 201,60€ for residence (up to 80% of the your rent). And up to 400€ a month of government-guaranteed cheap student loan. If you are skimpy, it's just about enough to get along.
In Denmark I get around €750 per month from the government as a student, and I can take another €400 euro or so as a very low interest loan if I want. I can also apply for assistance with rent as needed.
Actually, it is also sort of the opposite in Finland. The student grants are smaller than unemployment benefits etc. If you just stay at home doing nothing you are eligible for more money than if you enroll as a student.
And I'm thinking of dropping out because of this. I'm just accumulating debt because the student's benefits are not enough for me to live on. The quality of teaching in my uni is really quite shit and they've seriously "compacted" important courses (e.g. in math) and it looks like most students in my group are not leaning anything at all, nor are they expected to. It's quite demotivating, even depressing.
Don't forget that starting next year, you will no longer be able to reapply to any Finnish universities if you have been accepted to one before. I would at least get a bachelor's degree so it will be easier to apply to universities abroad if you ever want to continue your education.
Technically speaking I haven't been accepted into one, because I cannot apply without secondary education. So I'm paying to study in one. That ought to change, come next semester. But I don't know if I want to waste two or three more years on this crap.
1: That's right, Finns are paid to study. I think students in most of the Nordic countries are.
edit: formatting