Growth in the number of international students in the Netherlands continues to decline

The number of international students in Dutch higher education is just 3 per cent higher than last year. This is the smallest growth in the past ten years, reports internationalisation organisation Nuffic.

At the start of the 2024-25 academic year, a total of 131,000 international students were enrolled in the Netherlands for a full bachelor’s or master’s programme. This is an increase of 3,835 compared to the 2023-2024 academic year, the report shows.

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

Fewer new undergraduates

The number of international students enrolling for the first time in a Dutch bachelor’s or master’s programme is also stagnating. This academic year, there were 51,800 students across the entire higher education sector, an increase of only 0.4 per cent. This is the smallest increase since 2006.

This is mainly due to the lower intake in bachelor programmes. At universities and universities of applied sciences, that dropped by 5 and 7 per cent respectively. This loss was barely compensated this year by an increase in university master’s programmes of 10 per cent (to 19,960 students) and 9 per cent (to 2,365 students) in higher professional education master’s programmes.

Nuffic predicts that the declining enrolment in bachelor’s programmes will lead to a decrease in master’s programmes in a few years, resulting in a contraction of the total international student population.

Differences

The growth rates vary significantly by institution. For example, the technical universities in Eindhoven and Delft welcomed significantly more new international bachelor and master’s students this academic year: 24 and 21 per cent respectively. However, at the University of Groningen and Utrecht University, the numbers fell by 8 and 9 per cent respectively. In Wageningen, the decline was 10 per cent.

According to the higher professional education figures from Nuffic, the number of new enrolments at The Hague University of Applied Sciences increased by 8 per cent, although not all institutions are included in the list. Fontys recorded a decrease of 8 per cent, but remains the top institution in absolute numbers: overall, over six thousand international diploma students are enrolled there.

The largest decline in higher professional education is observed at Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, which has nearly 15 per cent fewer new international students than last academic year.