These are preliminary figures; students often apply to multiple institutions, so there will still be some shifts. The final percentages will follow in a few months. In 2023, enrolment still increased significantly, for the Bachelor's programmes even around 10 percent. This year, the story is just the opposite: a 10 percent drop. Because of the uncertainty surrounding the numbers, the Executive Board does not want to release details about which programmes are ‘losing’ students. For the Master's, the figures do show an increase of 5 percent.
UM is “stabilising” in size, as the Executive Board writes in its press release, and that’s “in line with expectations. The university already indicated last year that it has an eye for what the city of Maastricht can handle in terms of growth. (...) In doing so, the university wants new initiatives with growth potential to also land elsewhere in Limburg.” In Venlo, Heerlen and Sittard-Geleen. On the other hand, the university should not attract too few students because the labour market in the region “still has major shortages”.
International students
What about the ratio of international versus Dutch students? This year, 61 percent of all students have a foreign passport (last year 59 percent). However, among the new batch, the proportion of Dutch students is increasing slightly, the Executive Board reports. Last year, 35.8 percent of all first years were Dutch. That has now risen to 36.7, Augustijn says. Thus, the proportion of internationals is decreasing slightly. Is there an explanation for this? “There is no one-to-one explanation,” says spokesperson Koen Augustijn. “Yes, international recruitment has been at a standstill, as agreed with the minister. That may explain some of it. But the effect is small: we expect only a limited decrease in the proportion of international students in the intake.”
Venlo
In The Hague there is an act – ‘Internationalisation in Balance’ – containing a number of measures on language and intake. The cabinet wants fewer foreign and more Dutch students in the programmes. All Dutch universities have already anticipated this by halting new English-language Bachelor programmes for the time being. However, programmes that have already been developed or are going through the assessment process will still be admitted. For example, Sustainable Bioscience in Venlo has been given the green light (but must still pass the accreditation process). It was announced this week that the municipality of Venlo and UM will each invest €8 million in the growth of research and education in that city for the next four years.
Brain Science
This year, UM launched the Brain Science programme, a unique combination of psychology, biology, mathematics and data science, which involves three faculties. Although there is a fixus of 150 students, the programme attracted only 84, according to the latest application figures. They had hoped for more, emails Anke Sambeth, Vice-Dean of Education for the Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience. But at the same time, “it gives us a chance to gauge whether all the big plans are working or whether we may need to make adjustments.”
Euregion
One last detail, about UM's role in the Euregion, the area within 100 kilometres of Maastricht. President Rianne Letschert always insists on Maastricht's special border location. Preliminary figures show that more than half of the students come from the Euregion, which could be Limburg, Belgium or Germany.