The current total of 326 – which does not include applicants who have yet to pay tuition fees and/or submit their secondary school diplomas – is “not what we had hoped for. And I can’t offer an immediate explanation”, admitted Vice-Dean for Education Sjoerd Claessens.
This year, the European Law School introduced an enrolment quota. First-year student numbers had been steadily increasing for years, and last year it seemed entirely possible that intake might reach 650 to 700 first-year students, putting considerable strain on teaching capacity. To avoid this, the Faculty Board decided to limit first-year admissions to 550. At the time, there was no concern that the lottery system might deter students from enrolling in the programme. The board had confidence in ELS’s distinctive character and appeal.
“There are always students who say they’ll come, but then change their minds. Something seems to be going wrong along the way”, said Claessens. Dean Jan Smits also noted that Maastricht is attracting fewer international students overall. The faculty plans to analyse the data and make a decision as soon as possible, “before the end of this year”, on whether to raise the quota for next year.
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Academic staff representative Nora Vissers asked what the lower intake might mean for the faculty’s budget “and staffing levels. Will people lose their jobs?” Smits reassured colleagues that this would not be the case, “not based on these figures”, thanks in part to flexible contracts and natural staff turnover. “Being a bit smaller for a while isn’t necessarily a bad thing – it gives us some breathing space – but obviously it shouldn’t go on for years.”
The decline in enrolment at the Faculty of Law is not confined to ELS. The pre-master’s programme in Dutch Law has also seen enrolment rates drop, from 118 last year to 53 this year. According to Claessens, however, this is due to policy changes. “We used to be rather generous in admitting students from a wide range of educational backgrounds, but many struggled to complete the programme. We’ve now tightened the rules. Only graduates of law programmes at universities of applied sciences, along with a number of other specific programmes, are eligible. Others may submit a request for consideration by the Board of Admissions on a case-by-case basis.”