‘How can it be that you guys expect the intake in the science faculty's programmes to drop? Aren't you far too gloomy?’ I get this question regularly and, frankly, I can understand why. According to the annual forecast of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW), the so-called reference estimate, the number of students in the Netherlands will fluctuate between 341,700 and 342,700 in the coming years. This seems reassuring, but those who look further will see that the reality is probably less favourable. Dutch higher education is at a turning point.
For 15 years, I have been lecturing on the impact of demographic trends on sustainability. I always illustrate my lecture with the extreme comparison between Japan and Nigeria, without ever really projecting these trends onto my own Dutch situation. And now Dutch demographics are suddenly a factor that affects me on a daily basis. If you look at the population pyramid of the Netherlands, you immediately see that the foundation of the ‘pyramid’ is not widening but narrowing. For decades, fewer children have been born in the Netherlands. Fewer children in the classroom ultimately means fewer students in the lecture halls. On top of this, the throughput from vmbo, havo and mbo to higher education is stagnating, resulting in even fewer young people populating our campus.
International students have long been the invisible engine of growth. In higher education, their intake increased by double digits every year until growth stopped in 2022. This academic year's preliminary enrolment figures show that the intake of international undergraduate students at universities fell by 6% compared to last academic year. This appears to be due to the current government's announced plans to regulate the influx of international students. Colleges and universities will no longer be able to blindly rely on foreign students as a buffer against shrinkage. The idea that international students completely compensate for the decline of Dutch students, as the reference estimate suggests, therefore seems too optimistic.
The way universities in the Netherlands can cope with this changing reality varies because of the large differences in the proportion of international students at each institution. Universities such as Maastricht (60%) and Twente (34%) have a high proportion of international students, while Nijmegen (11%) and Utrecht (15%) traditionally have a smaller proportion of foreign students. The VU, with a 20% share of non-Dutch students, has different challenges from the University of Amsterdam, whose student population is 35% foreign students.
In the same way that universities differ from each other, the impact of the reference estimate also varies at faculty level. In the choice profiles that secondary school students choose from, trends can again be observed that have consequences for our Science faculty. In absolute terms, the already small share of the Nature & Technology (NT) profile has fallen sharply in the past period, with a small upturn in the past year. This decline is less extreme for the Nature & Health(NG) profile.
The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science's annual reference estimate thus offers valuable insights, but certainly has its limitations in these turbulent times. Namely, the reference estimate is policy-poor, meaning that it does not take into account possible policy choices in the future, such as the Internationalisation in Balance Act (WIB), which will further reduce the intake of international students. This makes the reference estimate both a compass and a warning signal: those who rely blindly on these aggregated figures risk underestimating reality.
The contraction is not a reason to panic, but a wake-up call. We will have to think more sharply about our strategic direction. How do we ensure attractive education that continues to appeal to both Dutch and international students? How do we deal with accommodation problems in Amsterdam and increasing competition between universities? The turning point has been reached. Now it is up to higher education to set the course.