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Foto: Teska Overbeeke (UvA)
international

One in four international students still in the Netherlands five years after graduating

Henk Strikkers,
17 mei 2022 - 15:20

Most international students leave when they graduate, but almost one in four is still living here five years later. Research by Nuffic shows that these highly educated people provide the Dutch treasury with a net return of €1.5 billion per year.

There are many students from abroad in Dutch higher education. The government pays the same for the Europeans among them as it does for Dutch students. This sometimes creates resistance: why should the Netherlands educate so many foreign students?

 

But they bring in money in the end, as reconfirmed in research by internationalisation organisation Nuffic into the so-called stayrate and the jobs of international graduates in the Netherlands.

 

Non-Europeans

Since 2010, the percentage of stayers after five years is 23 to 24 percent. Students from outside Europe, such as Chinese, stay here more often (38 percent) than former students from the European Economic Area (EEA: 19 percent). One explanation is that the latter students can work anywhere in the EEA, while non-EEA graduates have much less freedom of movement with their visas. Plus, non-Europeans are more likely to come for a masters’s degree, so they are ready to work afterwards.

 

Not all fields of study are the same. Technical graduates are the ones who most often stay in the Netherlands: of the university alumni among them, no less than 40 percent. They mainly find work in Brainport in Eindhoven. Among other graduates, the labour market region of Amsterdam is the most popular.

 

Lucrative

Nuffic estimates that this year's new batch of foreign students will generate around €1.5 billion euros. However, it should be noted that it is uncertain whether the stay rate of the group that started studying this year will be as high. Compared to five years ago, many more students are studying in English and are not forced to learn Dutch. It is generally assumed that learning Dutch improves the stayrate.