As I wrote earlier, my son is going to study physics in Enschede. He didn’t feel at home at TU/e during the open days: too large-scale, too international. And perhaps the fact that I work here also played a role.

Many of his classmates saw things differently. They were eager to study in Eindhoven. Convenient, within biking distance, no stress about finding a room, and “hotel mom” takes care of meals and laundry.

So they applied for mechanical engineering or architecture, programs with an intake restriction, and on April 15 the moment of truth arrived. The students were informed whether they had been admitted. Unfortunately: all rejected. Not a single one of my son’s classmates will be coming here to study mechanical engineering or architecture.

Did they perform that poorly on the admission exams? Perhaps. After all, Dutch students are not used to such exams. Candidates from countries where admission exams are common tend to spend weeks preparing intensively and therefore achieve strong results. And the large number of applications from outside the Netherlands is certainly noticeable.

In mechanical engineering, only 279 out of 1,445 applicants have Dutch nationality (intranet). It is possible that some of the other applicants are actually attending school in the region, but unfortunately I cannot verify this, because that information is not tracked—or at least not made visible—in TU/e’s PowerBI data portal.

In architecture, 236 out of 509 applicants have Dutch nationality (intranet), and in computer science, the other program with an intake restriction, only 95 out of 820 (intranet)—and there, too, some are rejected.

So while the region is sounding the alarm about the urgent need to train more mechanical engineers, the city clearly needs innovative, nitrogen-neutral construction methods, and AI built by computer scientists is steadily taking over the world, TU/e is turning away students who already live in Eindhoven and want to study these exact subjects.

What we are left with are disappointed, disillusioned students (and parents, including direct colleagues, judging by the many WhatsApp messages on this topic), who now have to look for programs elsewhere, facing housing shortages and the associated stress.

Way to go, TU/e!

Boudewijn van Dongen is a full professor of Process Analytics at TU/e. The views expressed in this column are his own.

This column was translated using AI-assisted tools and reviewed by an editor.