News - March 8, 2012

Dutch students become more mobile

More students are switching university for their Master's.

Figures from Wageningen University show that students are increasingly likely to choose a Master's at a different university after obtaining their Bachelor's degree. In 2007 a mere eight students chose to follow their Wageningen BSc with an MSc elsewhere in the Netherlands; by 2011 that number had increased to 47. The reverse flow, of BSc graduates coming from other Dutch universities to do an MSc in Wageningen, rose from 18 to 100 in the same period. So the inflow from other universities is twice the size of the outflow.
Ab Groen, Director of Corporate Education & Research, thinks the introduction of the Bachelor-Master structure is now finally having an effect. The universities are also getting better at promoting their Master's programmes. Groen expects to see further increases in the mobility of students after their Bachelor's degrees. 'Students are becoming more flexible, in part thanks to their extensive social networks.'
More than a quarter of the Wageningen students who pack their bags after their BSc opt for Utrecht University. Nijmegen and the VU University Amsterdam are also fairly popular. Last year, the most popular Wageningen MSc programmes among students from other universities were Forest and Nature Conservation (14), International Development (13) and Animal Sciences (10). The overview does not include the inflow from foreign institutions, which is larger.