• Education , Student
  • 01/02/2018

Further increase in foreign students at universities

University expansion was considerable last year: in September the universities had 11.2 percent more first-years studying on their Bachelor's programs. Many of these new students come from abroad.

A record number of 52,573 new Bachelor's students started their programs in September. Economic Bachelor's programs saw particularly strong growth (16 percent), but behavior and society (14.3 percent) and engineering (11.6 percent) were also on the rise.

The Netherlands is an increasingly popular destination for foreign students. Last year the Bachelor's programs attracted some 8,700 ‘international’ students. This year the figure is 10,600. An increase of 22 percent. “The international position of the Dutch universities is very good,” concludes universities association VSNU.

The Master's programs too (total growth: 3.7 percent) drew more internationals: an additional 7 percent. The current situation is that 17.5 percent of all university students come from abroad.

But the largest group of first-years remains Dutch students who have completed their pre-university high school education. In September they numbered no fewer than 31 thousand, the highest number since 2013. This represents 4.9 percent growth on the previous year.

Record

In total (first-years plus subsequent years) on the census date of October 1st the number of students enrolled at Dutch universities was 276,713. This is the highest number ever. Moreover, it exceeds the number the Ministry of Education was using to make prediction.

This year the University of Amsterdam attracted the most first-years: 6,007. A small increase on last year's winner, the University of Groningen. Tilburg University has the highest rate of growth: 19 percent.

Archive photo main photo: Bart van Overbeeke

First-year Bachelor's

 

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

 

University of Amsterdam

4 529

5 316

4 940

4 377

5 196

6 007

15.6%

University of Groningen

5 015

5 382

5 284

5 061

5 453

5 992

9.9%

Erasmus University Rotterdam

3 628

4 311

4 338

4 381

4 773

5 355

12.2%

Utrecht University

5 610

5 225

4 997

4 929

5 095

5 352

5.0%

Leiden University

3 845

4 508

4 166

4 267

4 451

4 998

12.3%

Radboud University Nijmegen

3 179

3 707

3 418

3 126

3 524

4 101

16.4%

VU Amsterdam

3 827

3 794

3 793

3 322

3 397

3 931

15.7%

Tilburg University

2 458

2 301

2 188

2 762

3 067

3 654

19.1%

Maastricht University

3 192

3 137

3 184

3 444

3 432

3 652

6.4%

Delft University of Technology

2 610

2 871

2 924

3 082

3 183

3 446

8.3%

Eindhoven University of Technology

1 636

1 823

1 986

2 146

2 247

2 497

11.1%

University of Twente

1 697

1 714

1 719

1 598

1 962

2 002

2.0%

Wageningen University

1 093

1 311

1 338

1 381

1 512

1 586

4.9%

Total

42 319

45 400

44 275

43 876

47 292

52 573

11.2%

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