Fewer new students for TU/e due to gap year?

Applied sciences universities sounded the alarm recently because they feared a drop in enrollment numbers coming academic year. Students were expected to wait until the reintroduction of the basic grant in 2023 and take a gap year. The number of advance registrations at TU/e’s nine bachelor’s programs without an intake restriction shows a decline of approximately one hundred Dutch advance registrants compared to the previous year. Does that constitute a dip caused by a gap year?

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file photo Vincent van den Hoogen

In contrast to universities of applied sciences, research universities have seen an increase in the number of advance registrations for their bachelor’s programs coming academic year. Preliminary figures show an increase of five percent compared to last year. One possible reason for this growth is the influx of international students at English-taught bachelor’s programs, which turned out to be even higher than expected. Their number has been increasing steadily over the years. At a national level, however, there is no sign as of yet that young people feel inclined to postpone their academic studies en masse.

At TU/e, the number of advance registrations has currently also climbed significantly compared to last year: from 3879 to 5059, according to figures from the university’s BI portal. Quite the opposite of a dip, one would conclude. However, a closer examination of these figures shows that advance registrations from Dutch students at TU/e’s nine bachelor’s programs without an intake restriction coming academic year, are lagging behind last year’s numbers.

Intake restriction

When we filter out advance registrations for the programs Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences, Industrial Design, Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science and Engineering – four programs with an intake restriction for which students had until January 15 to register – we are left with 2347 advance registrations, 592 of which are Dutch advance registrants. At around the same time last year, that number was 690, a difference of almost a hundred. That appears to be a dip, but students still have until May to register for these programs. There are five weeks left to make up for that difference.

Professor Inez Lopez Arteaga, dean of the Bachelor College, isn’t worried about the difference between today’s number of Dutch advance registrations and that of last year. She certainly doesn’t believe that it is a response to the reintroduction of the basic grant in 2023. Lopez Arteaga: “In any event, it’s still too early to draw any conclusions about student intake for the academic year 2022/2023. Our four programs with an intake restriction actually show an increase in the number of advance registrations.” Dutch advance registrations for TU/e’s four programs with an intake restriction are currently at 1012, compared to 825 last year. A decentralized test decides who will be admitted to these programs. “And we know from last year that prospective students wait until the final days before the deadline to register,” the dean says.

Prognosis

Naturally, not all advance registrants will come to Eindhoven in September. Registrants from abroad in particular often decide to enroll at a different institution in the end, here in the Netherlands or elsewhere. The BI portal also shows a prognosis of the expected intake, based on data and figures from the past. According to this prognosis, TU/e can expect 2319 first-year students next academic year, with a majority of 1284 Dutch students. However, in terms of percentage breakdown, the gap between Dutch entrants (56 percent) and international entrants is closing, a trend that started in 2019.

When it comes to intake numbers of foreign students, Lopez Arteaga refers to a recently published publication by Statistics Netherlands (CBS). “We follow a national trend as far as the number of international students in the first year is concerned. They make up approximately forty percent nationwide, according to CBS. This mainly shows that we in Eindhoven offer programs of a very high quality. Also, the labor market desperately needs well-trained engineers.” Apart from the bachelor’s programs at Biomedical Engineering, all of TU/e’s bachelor’s programs are taught entirely in English by now.

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