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This year, the number of first-year biology students has fallen by nearly 10 per cent, driven mainly by declining enrolments in Utrecht and Nijmegen
‘We have no clear-cut explanation for the decline. Housing shortages, changes to the numerus fixus in related programmes, a rail strike during one of the open days, and the scaling-up (and additional funding) of and by technical universities will all have played a small part’, suspects plant physiologist Martijn van Zanten, programme director of the bachelor’s degree in biology at Utrecht University. This largest biology programme in the Netherlands has seen a substantial drop in first-year enrolments this year: from 433 in 2024 to 355 now – a fall of no less than 18 per cent, which is also reflected in the national first-year intake for the university-level bachelor’s in biology: down by nearly 10 per cent, from 1,283 first-year students in 2025 to 1,159 now.
Nationally, the biomedical bachelor’s programmes have seen a rise of 15 per cent, from 803 to 924 first-year students, almost entirely attributable to the English-taught programme in Maastricht. After two academic years, that programme has lifted its numerus fixus again and has grown by no less than 76 per cent, from 185 to 326 first-year students. According to Jan Theys, programme director of biomedical sciences in Maastricht, this sharply increased intake poses no problems for staff or facilities. ‘We can handle it perfectly’, says Theys. With this intake, the programme is still below its peak year of 2022, when 484 students enrolled, and is roughly back to its pre-pandemic level.
This emerges from the annual survey of first-year enrolments at university-level bachelor’s programmes that Bionieuws traditionally conducts among programme coordinators at the start of the academic year (see the accompanying graphs). For biology, the picture is mixed. The English-taught programme at Radboud University is this year the only one with a numerus fixus and has also seen a sharp decline: down 25 per cent, from 142 first-year students in 2024 to 106 now. ‘We had a numerus fixus of 220 for years, and we never reached it’, says biologist Janine Gossen, education coordinator for biosciences. For this cohort, Nijmegen used a lottery system rather than the labour-intensive selection assignments, motivation letters and grade transcripts used in previous years. For the coming year, however, the numerus fixus is being scrapped in order to ‘attract more first-year students’. This almost certainly means that in 2026 no bachelor’s programme in biology will have a capped intake.
FIRST
In Amsterdam, a first has occurred: the first-year intake at the bachelor’s programme in biology at Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam, with 65 first-year students (+10 per cent), is for the first time in living memory larger than that of the University of Amsterdam (UvA), with 61 new students (−29 per cent). In Groningen, one fewer student than last year is starting biology (209, 0 per cent), whilst Wageningen has 6 more first-year students (151, +4 per cent). Aside from Maastricht, enrolments in the biomedical programmes are strongly determined by the numerus fixus. Here, Utrecht (175), Nijmegen (100) and Leiden (71) have filled their quotas exactly, but the UvA has fallen short with 120 first-year students (−20 per cent) and the VU with 132 (+7 per cent), even though the intake caps for these programmes were set at 175 and 300 respectively.
The seventeen biology-related programmes together attracted 1,596 first-year students this year – again fewer than last year: down 6 per cent. The biggest faller this year is, remarkably, the plant sciences programme in Wageningen. There, enrolments have dropped by 42 per cent, from 78 in 2024 to 45 now, even though this programme recorded the largest increase last year. The Wageningen programmes in biotechnology (−30 per cent, from 60 to 42) and nutrition and health (−14 per cent, from 159 to 136) have also seen declining enrolments.
The nanobiology programme in Delft/Rotterdam and the animal science programme in Wageningen are the biggest risers in this category, both up 14 per cent. Some way behind them is marine science in Wageningen, where 11 per cent more first-year students are starting this year: 117, compared with 105 in 2024. The Maastricht science programme remains, in absolute terms, the biology-related programme with the largest intake: 255 first-year students are beginning this year, nearly 2 per cent fewer than the 259 of 2024. The UvA’s psychobiology programme remains second, with an intake of 192 – 18 per cent fewer than the 236 first-year students in 2024.
‘We had a numerus fixus of 220 for years, and we never reached it’
The Dutch-taught (!) Nijmegen programme in science has this year extended its name to natural science, but this has not translated into a significant increase in numbers. The programme has in fact attracted 32 per cent fewer first-year students this year, falling from 38 to 26.
Two programme coordinators of English-taught bachelor’s programmes also provided the breakdown of Dutch and international students this year. For biology in Nijmegen the ratio is 3 to 1; for molecular and biophysical life science (MBLS) in Utrecht the ratio is approximately 1 to 1. MBLS coordinator Bertrand Kleizen notes that even the Dutch applicants in Utrecht are becoming increasingly international: expats, pupils with a migration background, and pupils who have attended an English-language secondary school. In his view, these are good reasons to continue teaching in English rather than engaging in ‘the ongoing debate about keeping international students out’.