{"id":154206,"date":"2023-05-04T12:20:03","date_gmt":"2023-05-04T10:20:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=154206"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:26:46","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:26:46","slug":"ministry-expects-tens-of-thousands-fewer-students-in-higher-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2023\/05\/04\/ministry-expects-tens-of-thousands-fewer-students-in-higher-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Ministry expects tens of thousands fewer students in higher education"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science believes the number of incoming students in higher education will be lower by tens of thousands compared to earlier predictions. The higher professional education sector is shrinking faster, and the growth of research universities is slowing down.<\/p>\n

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Last year, the Ministry still thought universities of applied sciences would see about 18,000 fewer students in 2029 compared to now. The latest calculations foresee a reduction by 40,000 students.<\/p>\n

And where research universities were previously forecast to recruit an additional 65,000 students, this number in the latest \u2018baseline forecast\u2019 has been adjusted to only 23,000.<\/p>\n

Too optimistic<\/h2>

For years, the Ministry underestimated the growth in the number of students, particularly at research universities. To the annoyance of research universities and universities of applied sciences, this led to disappointing state budget allocations and to cuts in higher education. The current assessment, however, is that the Ministry was too optimistic last year.<\/p>\n

The lower student intake in the current academic year may be related to the introduction of the new basic student grant. More young people took a gap year after their school-leaving examination, rather than going on to high education immediately.<\/p>\n

This does not matter for the longer term, however: the Ministry is confident they will eventually find their way to the research universities and universities of applied sciences. The current reduction in numbers has other causes.<\/p>\n\n\t

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Read more<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t