• The University , Student
  • 29/05/2018

Executive Board expects first-year intake to stay the same

Rector Magnificus Frank Baaijens expects next year's intake of first-year Bachelor's students to remain unchanged from this academic year. In October 2017 these first-years numbered 2,293. According to Baaijens this follows seven years of strong growth. Of the four TU/e programs that this year have applied decentralized selection to limit their intake, only Industrial Design will be denying places to those registering in advance based on their ranking.

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The Executive Board has bid a firm farewell to the conservative growth scenario and is now working with the progressive scenario. In other words, “a realistic scenario”, vice president Jo van Ham informed the members of the University Council yesterday. This means that the total student population - Bachelor's and Master's - will rise to some 14,500 students in 2022. In the conservative scenario a figure of 12,900 students was assumed.

One measure taken to limit the growth was the setting of an upper limit on student intake to four TU/e programs for the coming academic year. In September three of these four programs will be admitting all the advance registrations who participated in the decentralized selection. The intake ceilings set for Computer Science & Engineering (250), Biomedical Engineering (225) and Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences (240) will not be reached. Only at Industrial Design (ID), where the ceiling is set at 150 first-years, will applicants not be admitted based on their ranking. But this reflects the fact that this academic year saw an intake of 232 first-years to ID.

Rector Frank Baaijens. Photo | Angeline Swinkels
Rector Frank Baaijens. Photo | Angeline Swinkels
Shift

In the Spring Memorandum 2019, which precedes the budget for the coming year and which was discussed yesterday with the University Council, the maximum number of first-years that the university would like to admit has been established for each program. According to Baaijens, these intake ceilings may well mean that in the near future an upper limit on student numbers will be requested for yet more programs. Baaijens also reported that a shift in intake figures between programs is taking place, but that the composition of the total intake is substantially the same as in preceding years. “For example, we are happy to see that many women are still choosing our programs.”

Baaijens also addressed the matter of the national discussion that has arisen concerning the growth in foreign student numbers. Increasingly, they are supposedly ousting Dutch students from the classroom, particularly on programs with an upper limit on student intake. According to Baaijens, an increase in TU/e's institution fee for students from outside the European Union (currently standing at 10,000 euros for Bachelor's and 15,000 euros for Master's) could have a limiting effect on this intake. But he also said that at present the law does not permit the refusal of international students if they meet the set criteria. Baaijens is, however, keen to know what Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven will say on this matter in June when she presents her vision of the internationalization of education.

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