Science, economics, law and religion programmes at the University of Groningen are a real hit this year

Once again, the University of Groningen (UG) has succeeded in attracting more new Dutch and international students. The degree programmes offered by the faculties of Science and Engineering, Economics and Business, and Religious Studies have proven to be particularly popular. On 1 October 2017, 29,748 students were enrolled at the UG as their primary university, an increase of 3.4% compared to last year. The total number of students enrolled, including those who are exempt from paying tuition fees to the UG due their first registration at another university, has passed the 30,000 mark: 30,472. The UG’s market share in the Netherlands remains around the same, 3rd position (out of 12).

5,429 new students registered for the propaedeutic phase (1,512 from abroad), and 822 new students registered for the Master’s phase. The total number of new registrations is 7,110, including the pre-Master's programmes. This is a considerable increase compared to last year (9.2%) and the highest number ever. Since 2009 there has been a steady increase in the number of Master's students at the UG: for the 2017-2018 academic year, this number has reached almost 10,000.

International students from more than 110 countries

2,323 new international students have registered for the current academic year, an increase of 16.1%. In total, 5,817 students from abroad are now studying at the UG, 19.6% (was 17.3%) of the total number of registered students.There is also a record number of exchange students (1,057 in total, 50 more than last year). At the same time, there has also been an increase in the number of new Dutch students at the UG (+277), bucking the slight downward trend we have seen in recent years. The introduction of the new student loan system only seems to have had a short-term impact. 1,964 of the 5,817 international students come from Germany. The remaining 3,853 international students come from well over a hundred different countries. In second place is the United Kingdom (423), followed by China (317), Italy, Romania, Greece, Bulgaria and Indonesia.

Popular degree programmes

The programmes which have had the biggest increase in the total number of student registrations are the Bachelor’s degrees in International Business (+238), International and European Law (+127), and Law (+116) and the Master’s degree in Medicine (+108). The number of students registered on the Bachelor’s degree in Psychology has decreased (-134) due to the reintroduction of the fixed quota.

Male to female ratio

The male to female ratio among students has remained about the same. There are currently slightly more women (51.4%) than men at the UG. This is also the case for the first registrations (52.9%).