The support provided is a combination of loans and grants, and is sufficient to cover normal living and university expenses for 10 months per year. Students are expected to support themselves by working during the two-month summer holiday. The 'Quota' Programme Funding through the Norwegian State Educational Loan Fund is available to some international students from developing countries and from Eastern Europe. Each year the university is awarded a quota of financial grants for students from these regions who have been admitted to post-graduate programmes taught in English. Many of the grants are awarded to participants in exchange schemes in collaboration with institutions in the Eastern European countries and in the Third World, but some individual applicants may also be accepted.
Programmes offered are at masters or doctoral level.
Towards the end of each year the university is notified of the quotas available for the following autumn. In principle they are only awarded for one year at a time, so information on the programmes to be offered under the quota system is available only in the spring for the following academic year. Initially, the financial support is given on the same basis as to Norwegian students - i.e. as a combination of grants and loans, but when the programme has been completed and the student returns home, the loan portion is converted into a grant, thus releasing the student from the debt. The quota programme also provides grants for doctoral research students being accepted for tutored research in fields where no English-language programmes exist. They are offered access to research facilities, seminars and lectures, but will often have to depend on special arrangements in order to bridge the language gap.