University Enrollment Decline: Trends and Causes

This academic year, as in previous years, fewer new students have registered at Dutch universities. The number of transfer students for bachelor’s programs has fallen by more than 3 percent compared to last year, according to figures from the universities. The intake in higher professional education fell slightly.

In particular, fewer foreign students entered universities. That number fell by 3.6 percent. The inflow from European countries fell the most. The percentage of new students from the Netherlands fell by 3.3 percent. HBO courses also saw fewer applications from abroad.

The number of transfer students to universities has been declining since 2020. The UNL, an umbrella organization of fourteen Dutch universities, has several explanations for this. Fewer VWO students took their final exams in 2025 and fewer students passed. Furthermore, more students who have passed appear to be taking a gap year, UNL writes.

International students often stay away for other reasons. This decline is probably the result of measures taken by the universities themselves in recent years. For example, they hardly recruit abroad anymore, and some universities warn prospective students about the room shortage in their city.

The Ministry of Education predicts that student numbers will continue to decline by almost 10 percent over the next ten years. “The shrinkage is no longer a future scenario, but reality,” says UNL chairman Caspar van den Berg. According to him, an “inviting talent strategy” is needed, and he welcomes the new coalition’s plans for this.

In HBO there was also a slight decrease in the number of entrants (0.6 percent) compared to the previous year. The figures differ greatly per direction. For example, many new students joined the teacher training colleges: after the strong growth last year, there was another sharp increase of 7.6 percent this academic year. More than 6,200 students started their primary education course this year. At the same time, a considerable decline was visible in second-level teacher training courses.

Maurice Limmen, chairman of the Association of Universities of Applied Sciences, thinks that the popularity of teacher training colleges has to do with the energy that has been put into making primary education work more attractive in recent years. This should now also happen with second-level teacher training courses, the chairman believes.

The largest decline in HBO courses this academic year was in science and technology. The ICT courses in particular received fewer registrations, 438 fewer new students than the previous academic year. While there is still a major shortage of IT professionals on the labor market. In addition to focusing on increasing the intake for these courses, Limmen also wants to look at retraining and further training of people from other professional sectors.