Student numbers

In 2016, the University had 13,038 enrolments, the second-largest number in the University’s history after 13,587 enrolments in 2011. With Tilburg University’s target of developing into a medium-sized institution (by Dutch standards) with 20,000 students, this growth is set to continue. The most striking growth was achieved by the institution in the early years and in the sixties. It set out with 28 students in 1927 and had 121 students after five years and 222 students after 10 years. This was followed by decades of steady growth, with periods of stabilization or small decline. In the sixties, student numbers virtually quadrupled from 838 in 1960 to 3,289 in 1970. This growth was partly attributable to postwar population growth and partly to the establishment of the new Law and Social Sciences study programs in this period. The last few years (2015-2017) have also witnessed steep growth, with the number of Bachelor’s students, for instance, rising from 1,841 to 2,207, a 20 percent increase. Student intake into Master’s programs in this period went up from 1,248 to 1,954, approximately a 57 percent increase.

More female and international students

Striking increases are the number of female students and, over the past 20 years, of foreign students. In 1995, the percentage of female students was 41 percent; in 2016, it had risen to 48 percent. The percentage of foreign students has grown spectacularly over the past few decades: from 2.25 percent in 1995 to 12.36 percent in 2015, or, in absolute numbers, from 198 (1995), 448 (2005), 998 (2009) to 1,521 (2015). In 2016, when 1,736 foreign students were enrolled, most of these hailed from the following five countries: Germany (258, a strong grower); China (193, the long-time top supplier, but dwindling since 2012); Greece (146); Bulgaria (111) and Italy (99).

Regional as well

Internationalization barely seems to have any effect on the regional student intake: the Province of North-Brabant has been the preferred supplier of students for many years now. In its first three decades, a little over 55 percent of first-year students came from this province, followed by Limburg (22.7 percent) and Gelderland and Zeeland at a greater distance. If we look at the mean student intake from pre-university education over the past three years (2014-2016), the North-Brabant share is almost 62 percent and that of Limburg almost 15 percent. The percentage of Brabanders is falling off slightly while that of Limburgers is on the up. Growth developments are impacted by university reputations (rankings and student assessments), on the one hand, and by increased acquisition and marketing efforts of universities at home and abroad, on the other.