During last Monday’s University Council meeting, Groep-één argued in favor of lowering or maintaining the institutional tuition fees for Bachelor’s and Master’s students from outside the European Economic Area, the so-called EEA students. It concerned the tuition fee rates for the academic year 2021-2022. This academic year, the tuition fee for non-EEA Bachelors is 11,200 euros, and 16,200 euros for non-EEA Masters. That is 200 euros more than last year. The increase next academic year is only 200 euros as well, for both Bachelor’s and Master’s students - an increase based on inflation, according to Education & Students Affairs (ESA).

Ralph van Ierland, chairman of Groep-één, believes that such a modest increase also helps close the gap between TU/e and Delft, where non-EEA Bachelors pay 14,500 euros this year, and non-EEA Masters 18,750 euros. “Delft is TU/e’s main competitor as far as this issue is concerned, and it hasn’t increased its rates in the last few years,” Van Ierland says. “And how does this increase relate to the university’s pursuit of the creation of an international classroom?”

Ambition

The Executive Board expressed its ambition last year to have an international classroom by 2025. Student population must consist of 30 percent international students by then. Rector Frank Baaijens said that intake of internationals already accounts for 26 percent of total student intake this academic year, and that 8 percent come from non-EEA countries. “You could say that we are nearly there,” Baaijens told the members of the University Council on Monday.

But that 26 percent doesn’t relate to the current student population. These last few years, the number of foreign students who enrolled in Bachelor’s programs has steadily climbed to 12.2 in 2019. However, the number of internationals who enrolled in a Master’s program has declined, from 22.4 in 2016 to 18.4 in 2019. “The latter figures in particular give food for thought,” Van Ierland says, “and we want to discuss this with the Executive Board”

Language proficiency test

The Executive Board issued a written comment in which it states that it sees no reason to lower tuition fees for non-EEA Bachelors, since their intake number continues to increase. It also claims that there are sound reasons why intake numbers among Master’s students have declined in the last few years. The level of the English language proficiency test was increased, for example, in order to guarantee the quality of education. “This led to a significant decrease in the number of enrollments from China and India,” according to the Executive Board. It also became more difficult, due to economic reasons, in a number of countries for students to get a scholarship. In addition, each country introduced a specific grade average, the so-called Grade Average Point (GPA), as a criterion for admission.

Paul Koenraad, dean of the Graduate School, says that he isn’t worried about the decline in the number of foreign Master’s students. “The reasons for this are obvious. During the next few years, we’ll see that foreign Bachelor’s, whose numbers continue to grow each year, will pursue a Master’s degree at our university. We’re also consulting with the company Studyportals to improve our recruitment activities aimed at those potential Master’s students who are particularly interesting to our university. We are currently figuring out which parameters we need to use for that.”

Koenraad, incidentally, won’t lose any sleep should the number of 30 percent foreign students not be reached by 2025. “That is something we strive for, but it’s not an unconditional demand, 25 percent would also be great. Better than 60 percent, because then we would have some explaining to do to politicians.”