Students from Wittenborg Amsterdam showed off their debating skills against a group of American students who are on a short-term, study-abroad programme at the University of Amsterdam and the Vrije Universiteit.
The Netherlands has maintained its position as one of the top study destinations in the world in the 2020 Times Higher Education World University Rankings. Together with Australia, it has the 4th highest number of universities in the Top 200.
Fewer scholarships and higher fees are what non-EU students planning to study at public universities in the Netherlands face, should new cabinet proposals to deal with the influx of international students come into force. Whether this will also apply to private institutions like Wittenborg University of Applied Sciences, that are not publicly funded, is unclear.
Contrary to the idea that international students are a huge financial burden to the Netherlands, new figures from the Dutch Central Planning Bureau (CPB) has shown the opposite - in actual fact they add thousands of euros to the economy each year.
The Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND) has warned international students against a new scam whereby they are called and either asked to provide private information like bank details, or threatened outright into transferring money. Even Wittenborg CEO, Maggie Feng, who is of Chinese origin, was targeted recently.
The Dutch government is taking some serious steps to curb the number of international students coming to the country, which includes raising the minimum tuition fee for students from outside the European Economic Area and compelling them to take Dutch lessons, ScienceGuide reported this week.
The Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND) has asked prospective international students to direct questions about their intended stay in the Netherlands to the institution they intend to apply to – whether a research university or a university of applied sciences like Wittenborg.
Representatives from Nuffic Neso Mexico, China, North Korea and Vietnam visited several institutions in the Netherlands, including Wittenborg, to learn what they offer international students, whilst providing valuable insights on student mobility in their own countries.
Dutch universities have been consistently successful in drawing huge numbers of international students. Now they want to focus more on attracting quality students from abroad, rather than sheer quantity.
The Minister of Higher Education, Ingrid van Engelshoven, has said she is not averse to asking the Dutch Inspectorate of Education to look into the way agencies recruit international students for public universities if there are indications of irregular conduct.
Main Campus Apeldoorn
