The number of TU students studying abroad for a few months has increased over the past five years. However, figures from the TU show that fewer Delft students are choosing to study in another country than before the coronavirus crisis. Delft students are thus following the national trend.
Photo for illustrative purposes. (Photo: Safar Safarov via Unsplash)
Although more Dutch students are earning part of their credits abroad, the aftermath of the coronavirus crisis is not yet over. This was evident last week from figures released by Statistics Netherlands (CBS). Before the coronavirus crisis broke out, approximately a quarter of higher professional education and university students went abroad.
The lockdowns during the global pandemic made such trips more difficult and less attractive. In the 2021/2022 academic year, only 11 per cent of all graduates from universities of applied sciences and universities had taken courses abroad at some point during their studies – probably before the crisis broke out. That percentage has now risen to 17 per cent of all new graduates from bachelor’s and master’s programmes in higher education, according to statistics agency CBS. That is one in six students.
Delft students
And what about Delft? First, a few important comments are in order. The figures from TU Delft are based on what students voluntarily report about their stays abroad in the Osiris administration system. Foreign internships must be reported, but other study stays do not. In other words, this does not include all students who study abroad temporarily. Furthermore, Statistics Netherlands does not keep separate figures for universities of applied sciences and research universities, which means that the national percentages also include universities of applied sciences. In addition, the figures from TU Delft are broken down by year rather than by academic year, as is the case with Statistics Netherlands. The figures are therefore not directly comparable, but they do provide an indication.
In Delft, too, we can see that the number of students studying abroad has increased again, but is still far from reaching the “old” level. The percentage has risen from 1 per cent during the coronavirus crisis year of 2020 to 9 per cent in 2024. Before the coronavirus crisis, the percentage was 13.5 per cent.
- Would you like to study or do an internship abroad? Each faculty has its own exchange programmes with foreign universities, for example in Norway, Taiwan, Japan, Colombia or Portugal. More information about studying abroad can be found on the TU Delft’s central study abroad page.
HOP, Bas Belleman/Delta, Annebelle de Bruijn
For this article, Delta received figures from the Education and Student Affairs department of TU Delft. These were absolute numbers. Delta converted the figures per year into percentages of the total number of TU students.
Do you have a question or comment about this article?
redactie@hogeronderwijspersbureau.nl
Comments are closed.