• Student
  • 22/05/2025
  • Nederlands

Growth of international students declines, but not at TU/e

The number of international students in Dutch higher education is only 3 percent higher than last year. That is the smallest growth in the past ten years, reports internationalization organization Nuffic. TU/e and TU Delft are growing against the trend: there the number of international registrations is actually increasing.

by
photo Angeline Swinkels

At the start of the 2024-25 academic year, a total of 131 thousand international students were enrolled in a full bachelor's or master's degree program in the Netherlands. This was an increase of 3,835 compared to the academic year 2023-2024, according to the report.

The growth of the number of internationals has been showing a declining trend for some time: three years ago it was still 12 percent, two years ago 7 percent, and last academic year 5.4 percent.

New enrollments

The number of international students enrolling for the first time in a Dutch bachelor's and master's program is also stagnating. This academic year, the number of students in higher education as a whole was 51,800, a growth of only 0.4 percent. That is the smallest increase since 2006.

[Translate to English:] © HOP, bron: Nuffic

However, growth rates vary considerably by institution. TU/e and TU Delft, for example, actually welcomed significantly more new international bachelor's and master's students this academic year: 24 and 21 percent, respectively. In Wageningen, on the other hand, the numbers dropped by 10 percent.

For master's programs, the number of international enrollments did grow, by 10 percent. At TU/e this is 22.6 percent. According to Nuffic, the growth is largely due to more international students transferring from another Dutch (bachelor's) study.

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