Back to the topic:
my opinion is pretty much already stated in the wikipedia article:
-Swedish gives you an advantage to learn other germanic languages
-Swedish is pretty useful in your neighbour countries: you can get along pretty well with Swedish: even in Scania some people can understand you
-it's useful in Finland too, when you want to visit the west-coast or Åland
However i think its bullskit (haha, jag vinnar över spellcheck) that it is mandatory even in high school/university. If you are not interested in learning something, you won't. I made the experience in school when I had to lean French (the other choice was Latin
). In 4 years I learned only the basics, because I had no interest in it. Later i regretted it, when I was in France and the people refuse to speak English... When I had voluntary Spanish in school later i have learned more in half-a-year than in 4 years French - ok, I had also a girlfriend from South-America at this time
Is it really mandatory to have a Swedish course in university? When I wanted to study in Oulu there was no such thing, only finnish courses, but the courses were in English anyway.