Moving for your master’s is gaining in popularity, especially to Rotterdam

More and more students are choosing to switch universities for their master’s degree, a trend that’s especially noticeable among international students. Popular cities include Amsterdam and Rotterdam.

Once they’ve secured their Bachelor’s diploma, students who want to pursue a Master’s are free to explore their options. A growing number are now deciding to continue their education at a different Dutch university.

Moeilijke opgave

Master’s programmes in Groningen, Eindhoven and Twente are still struggling to attract students from other cities, with transfer students making up only a small proportion of their intake. This is according to new enrolment figures for Dutch universities, published earlier this week.

Meanwhile, the two Amsterdam universities are benefiting from students’ desire to move to a new city. Rotterdam also attracts a relatively large number of graduates from other universities, as do Tilburg, Utrecht and Wageningen.

Internationals

Six years ago, 23 percent of students switched universities for their Master’s. Today, this figure is 26 percent. There has been no real change among Dutch students over the years, with around one in four choosing to do their Master’s elsewhere. The recent uptick is mostly attributable to international students: in the 2018/2019 academic year, about one in four switched universities, compared to one in three in 2024/2025.

This does not include the annual influx of 11,000 international Master’s students who completed their undergraduate degree at a foreign institution. Those who decide not to continue their studies or who choose to go abroad for their Master’s are not included in these figures either.

More bachelor’s than master’s students?

The popularity of Rotterdam and Amsterdam means that the universities in these cities have more first-year Master’s students than first-year Bachelor’s students. This difference is particularly pronounced at VU Amsterdam, partly due to the 1,000 university of applied sciences graduates who enrol in its Master’s programmes each year.

It’s the other way around in Maastricht and Groningen, where Bachelor’s programmes attract more first-year enrolments than Master’s programmes. The same goes for the technical universities of Eindhoven and Twente.