This week, news magazine Elsevier has published its annual analysis of the best study programs in Dutch higher education based on the National Student Survey (NSE) run by Studiekeuze123.nl. The respondents, some 280 thousand students, reveal what they think of the program they are following: are they satisfied, what do they think of their lecturers, how good are the facilities?

To arrive at its ranking of the institutions, Elsevier focuses on a single question in the NSE: how satisfied in general are students with their study program? Universities with the highest number of positively rated programs earn the highest scores.

To avoid comparing apples with oranges, the weekly magazine recognizes three categories: broad universities, which offer programs across a broad range of disciplines, universities of technology, and specialist universities.

Big winner

At 'specialist' Wageningen University twelve of the nineteen Bachelor's programs won above-average ratings by respondents. The other seven programs were awarded average scores by their students. This means that on balance Wageningen is the overall winner, as it was last year. Remarkably, Elsevier does not count Wageningen among the TUs, despite the fact that the university has now joined the three other TUs in the 4TU.Federation.

Similarly, students of TU/e are complimentary about their university: half of the twelve Bachelor's programs received an above-average evaluation. This puts Eindhoven streets ahead of Twente and Delft.

Of the broad universities, it is striking that the great majority of programs gained an average student rating. Of the forty-five programs offered at Utrecht, thirty fall in that grey region. Nonetheless, with eleven above-average rated programs, Utrecht is still entitled to call itself the best broad university in the Netherlands.

Sitting right at the bottom of the ranking is the University of Amsterdam. Students there are dissatisfied with no fewer than one-third of all sixty-one Bachelor's programs. Only seven, they believe, rise above average.