Foreigners “take places at medical universities” and “Polish taxpayers” pay? Two untruths

One of the anonymous users of website X published On October 12, 2024, a video downloaded from TikTok shows young women and a man dressed in medical clothing with stethoscopes around their necks. They all look like students. There are women in the foreground, and a man is behind on the stairs, looking at them. Three students are posing and laughing – it all looks like student jokes. The recording was accompanied by the song “Bulletproof” by the British duo La Roux.

Three of the participants in the video have a darker skin color, and the recording has an inscription in English: “Do you think you can hurt us? We study medicine in f***ing Szczecin” (the content refers to a popular trend on TikTok). Polish user X commented: “And then Poland cries about the lack of doctors. Places at medical universities occupied by foreigners whose studies are paid for by the Polish taxpayer. After completing their studies, they leave Poland. Following the example of military universities, every student of medical universities should sign a loyalty agreement which will oblige them to work in Poland for 10 years after completing their studies, and they should study in Polish (original spelling, bold by the editor).

The entry was viewed almost 200,000 times. Internet users. Some people believed the information provided by the author and also expressed their outrage. “Sick Country”; “Bantustan”; “If he leaves Poland, he should reimburse the education costs”; “Medical studies should be paid. For Poles, the loan is forgiven after 20 years of work in Poland. Let the rest go. What it is is pathology”; “Exactly, Poles are kicked out by ac***s, study for free and then leave” – ​​they wrote in the comments (original spelling of all entries).

However, the vast majority of commenters pointed out that the entry contained false information. “Medical studies are not free for foreigners”; “Where did you get the information that studies are free for foreigners?”; “No one pays foreigners to study here. They have to pay for it themselves”; “You're lying! Students of the medical faculty in the so-called English division are not paid 1 zloty by the Polish taxpayer,” Internet users reacted.

We explain who has to pay for medical studies in Poland, what recruitment looks like and what scale we are talking about.

Based on the original recording posted on TikTok (the video is no longer available), it can be determined that the students visible in it are studying at the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin (PUM). This information was confirmed by the university's spokeswoman, Prof. Barbara Wiszniewska. “The material was created by students from the Interfaculty Center for English Language Education of the Polish Medical University,” she said. The author of the recording comes from Norway; publishes on TikTok in English and Norwegian.

Citizenship and the language of instruction in which foreigners study medicine in Poland are important for their tuition fees, as described by the author of the quoted entry. At PUM in Szczecin – as well as at most other medical universities in Poland – studies in English are paid both for foreigners and Poles. The amount of fees depends on the field studied and the academic year in which studies began. For example, students who started English-language medical studies in Szczecin in October 2024, they have to pay between PLN 13,000 and 14.5 thousand euro for the first year of study. In the following years they will pay the same or slightly less. Moreover, as reported by the spokeswoman of the Medical University of Warsaw in Szczecin, “students studying Medicine and Dentistry in English, are recruited in a separate recruitment process“. This contradicts the thesis from the entry about “places occupied by foreigners”.

The situation is slightly different in the case of studies in Polish. According to act of July 20, 2018, Law on Higher Education and Science, such studies may or may not be payable to foreigners. As a rule, the following fees apply at the PUM in Szczecin: in accordance with: by order of the rector foreign students who started their studies in the current academic year must pay approx. PLN 14,000. euro per year for the medical field and 15.4 thousand euro per year for the medical and dental field.

We wrote: “generally paid” because the same act lists a number of situations in which foreigners at public universities are exempt from paying fees for studies in Polish. This applies to citizens of European Union countries, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Great Britain and Northern Ireland living in Poland, as well as foreigners with a permanent residence permit, refugees, holders of the Pole's Card or those who have a certificate of knowledge of the Polish language at C1. Let us remind you that this applies only to the exemption from fees for studies in Polish, so as a rule only foreigners who know Polish apply for it. WITH data published by the Information Processing Center – National Research Institute on behalf of the Ministry of Science shows that in the academic year 2022/2023, almost 62 thousand foreigners studying in Polish 12 thousand were exempt from tuition fees (less than 20%).

Foreign students can apply for various national or international scholarships to reduce the costs of paid studies in Poland. In addition, some countries subsidize their citizens' studies in the European Union: for example, Norway pays its students up to 100%. costs of studying in other countries. This is one of the reasons why in 2022, most foreigners studying medicine in Poland came from Norway (almost 16 percent). In this case, however, it cannot be said that the education of this group is “paid for by the Polish taxpayer.”

As for the number of foreigners studying medicine in Poland, in August 2024, the Minister of Science and Higher Education Dariusz Wieczorek in conversation with the website Politykzdrowotna.pl he said:

More detailed data on this subject was published in report “Foreigners at universities in Poland”, although the latest version comes from the academic year 2022/2023. The numbers were similar to what Dariusz Wieczorek reported: Approximately 8,000 students studied medicine and dentistry. foreigners, which accounted for 18%. all students in these fields.

The university they most frequently chose was the Medical University of Lublin, where foreigners constituted approximately 29%. all students. In terms of nationality, the most represented in medical fields were Norwegians (1.1 thousand students), Indians (710) and Germans (697). The report also indicated that “among students of medical faculties taught in a foreign language, as many as 94% of students come from abroad.”

At the same time, in the section devoted to fees for studies for foreigners, it was noted that “medical studies significantly differ in the amount of fees charged for educating foreigners on full-time studies in Polish from fields such as IT or management.”

Returning to the content of the entry about foreign medical students in Poland, the spokeswoman of the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin rightly stated: “To sum up, it cannot be said that foreign students studying at the Interfaculty Center for Education in English at the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin take places intended for Polish students, as well as the fact that these studies are financed by Polish taxpayers.