During the pandemic, students mostly study in their rooms. Image: Shutterstock. That’s a big increase, but less than the nationwide increase of 8 per cent. The numbers refer to total registrations as at 1 October 2020. Data often comes in from the education agency DUO after 1 October that then has to be incorporated retrospectively, which is why we only now have the definitive figures.
The number of first-year BSc students in Wageningen rose by 6 per cent. A big jump but not compared with the national average: nationally, the intake of Bachelor’s students grew by 13 per cent (!) compared with the same time in 2019.
No central exams
The increase is largely because the central school exams were cancelled, which meant more schoolchildren got their leaving certificate than usual. In addition, more school leavers decided against a year off so a bigger proportion went straight on to university.
The number of students starting a Master’s at Wageningen grew by 4 per cent. As in the Bachelor’s programmes, this was mainly due to a rise in the intake of Dutch students.
The international student
It was unclear for a long time how many international students would come to the Netherlands during the pandemic. The intake of international students has fallen in Wageningen, but not as much as was feared. There was a big drop in students from outside Europe (of 28 per cent for Bachelor’s and 12 per cent for Master’s) but student numbers from the European Economic Area saw less change: a drop of 6 per cent in BSc students and stable numbers for MSc students.
The number of new non-Dutch students originating from the EEA (European Economic Area) dropped by six per cent in the bachelors, while the number of new students from other regions dropped by 28 per cent. In the masters trajectories, the number of non-Dutch EEA students remained stable, while the number of non-EEA students dropped by 12 per cent.
A decline in numbers is seen mainly in the influx of students from outside of Europe. On 1 October there were 2709 non-European students enrolled at Wageningen University, up from 2604 in 2019.
Selection
Due to corona, a “soft selection” was permitted, allowing students who had not fully completed their bachelor to start their master. This provision was put in place to reduce further outflow. In Wageningen, 46 students made use of this opportunity.
The drop-out rate among first-year bachelor students of the year 2019 was ten per cent, similar to the previous years. The number of students switching to a different higher education programme remained constant at four per cent.