British Students Are Being Priced out of Dutch Universities

By Milan Korcok

High tuition fees are being blamed for a sharp drop of British students applying to Dutch schools reports Nuffic, a Dutch organization promoting internationalization in education. (Nuffic is based in The Hague).

According to Nuffic data, British student enrolments in Dutch universities and colleges dropped by 760 in 2021—bringing the total down to 2,372. The agency attributes this loss to tuition fee differentials for non-EU citizens vis-a-vis EU citizen-students. Non-EU bloc nationals must pay €6,000—those from EU less than €2,000.

Despite these losses from the UK, the overall number of international students enrolling in Dutch universities and colleges keeps growing, and now accounts for 20 percent of all admissions in the Netherlands current academic year. (Three out of four of these international students are EU citizens—mostly from Germany, Italy and Romania—while Chinese students account for the largest bloc of non- EU nationals)

However, this surge of international students is far from a blessing for administrators of Dutch institutions of higher learning. Earlier this year, Peter Duisenberg, Chairman of Universities of the Netherlands (UNL) emphasized the need for government assistance in managing the demands of international students, which, he said, are putting too much stress on staff to maintain the high quality of courses.  “We are asking politicians to quickly provide additional options with which the universities can control international student numbers in a targeted manner.”  

Milan Korcok is a national award wining medical writer who has been covering international medical and travel health issues for leading professionals journal in the United States, Canada, and the UK for many years. He works and resides in Florida.