This year, 14 percent fewer new European bachelor students have enrolled at the UG, marking the sharpest decline in years. The UG attributes this to the government’s plans to re-establish Dutch as the primary language in universities.
‘I suspect this has damaged the reputation of the Netherlands’, says spokesperson Elies Wempe-Kouwenhoven. The Schoof administration wants to implement the Internationalisation in Balance Act as quickly as possible to reduce the number of international students.
No active recruitment
This appears to be working. Last year, the number of European international students in Groningen already declined by 9 percent.
Wempe-Kouwenhoven further points out that in 2020, the UG ceased actively recruiting European students. ‘Since then, we no longer attend international fairs or other events where you would normally go with a marketing team’, she explains. ‘I think the combination of these two factors has significantly lowered the number of enrollments.’
More Dutch students
Surprisingly, the number of Dutch bachelor students has risen by 2.5 percent. The university doesn’t have an explanation for this unexpected increase. ‘We’re still investigating.’
Compared to last year, the UG has lost nearly 1.5 percent of its new bachelor students overall, with numbers dropping from 6,983 last year to 6,885 this year. However, enrolments from non-EU international students have risen by 5 percent.