Fewer students enrolled at Hamburg universities
According to the Federal Statistical Office, fewer and fewer people are enrolled at universities and universities of applied sciences in Hamburg. In the winter semester 2023/24, 116,872 people studied in the Hanseatic city, as the Federal Office announced on Tuesday. In the previous winter semester, there were 119,425 students - a decrease of 2.1 percent.
Student numbers are also falling in Germany as a whole. According to preliminary results, around 2,871,500 students are currently enrolled at German universities. This is 1.7% less than in the previous winter semester, when there were around 2,920,300 students.
According to the Federal Statistical Office, there is also a difference between universities and universities of applied sciences. For example, 2.4 percent fewer people are currently enrolled at universities than last winter, compared to just 0.5 percent fewer at universities of applied sciences.
At the same time, contrary to the decline in the total number of students, there are more and more first-year students in Germany. The number of first-semester students at universities has increased by 1.2% compared to the previous year: In the 2023 academic year, 479,300 people began studying for the first time - this was 5,600 people more than in 2022.
Prior to 2021, the number of first-semester students had been declining for four years, mainly because the number of young people in the relevant groups had decreased, the statisticians added. The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated this trend, as fewer foreigners have come to Germany to study as a result.
Last year, the number of first-semester students rose again, which, according to the Federal Statistical Office, was due to an increase in the number of foreign students coming to Germany to start their studies. To what extent the rising number in the current academic year is due to an influx of first-semester students from abroad, however, cannot be said on the basis of the provisional figures.
Despite the decline in student enrollment at Hamburg universities, the demand for higher education remains strong. Many students continue to seek university education, with 479,300 first-year students enrolling in German universities in the 2023 academic year, marking a 1.2% increase from the previous year.
Source: www.dpa.com
