Record number of students at UG: 36,023
Corona crisis main reason for increase
Record number of students at UG: 36,023
Door Rob Siebelink
By Rob Siebelink
The UG announced the news on Friday. The national number of students has increased by 8 percent (328,000 students), the VSNU reports.
One of the reasons for the increase is the corona crisis. A larger number of students graduated high school. The crisis has also caused fewer young people to take a gap year. The UG also suspects that easing up on the bachelor-before-master rule plays a role. ‘More students move from vocational training to applied sciences, from applied sciences to academia, and from bachelor to master.’
The number of master students is also increasing, as 5,147 new students have registered for a master programme at the UG. This academic year, there are 11,500 master students at the university (up from 10,200 last year).
Internationals
The number of foreign students has once again increased. There are currently 8,575 international students from 139 countries at the UG, making up nearly a quarter of all students (23.8 percent). Most international students are registered at the University College Groningen, Campus Fryslân, and the Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences.
German students make up the majority of internationals (2,442), not particularly closely followed by Romanian students (540). Next are Italian students (456), British (425), Chinese (346), and Greek, French, Bulgarian, Indonesian, Spanish, Polish, Irish, and Indian (fewer than 150 students from each country).
The number of female students is also steadily increasing (53.4 percent, up from 52,5 percent last year). This is especially the case for first registrations (54.4 percent). The percentage of female students is a little higher among international students.
Biggest risers
The business and law bachelor programmes have seen the largest increase of absolute numbers of students. Bachelor programme global responsibility and leadership and the masters media studies and mechanical engineering have seen a relative larger influx of students. The Campus Fryslân in Leeuwarden now has nearly two hundred students.
Rector magnificus Cisca Wijmenga is happy with the growth, but foresees some issues, as well. ‘We feared we’d see quite a drop in the number of registrations because of the corona crisis, but it turned out to be the opposite. We’re particularly seeing more Dutch and European students. These large numbers of students do present new challenges for our lecturers. We’ll be trying to tackle these with our Education Action Plan.’