Sciences – The number of first-year university students has risen again

Students in the lecture hall Photo: Agence France-Presse

The number of people entering higher education for the first time has risen again. In the 2023 academic year, the percentage was 1.6 percent higher than the previous year, the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden announced.

The number of people entering higher education for the first time has risen again. In the 2023 academic year, the percentage was 1.6 percent higher than the previous year, the Federal Statistical Office announced on Wednesday in Wiesbaden. A total of 481,500 people started the study for the first time. The number of first-year students rose for the second time in a row, but is still below the pre-pandemic level in 2019, when 508,700 people registered for a course for the first time.

Foreign students who came to Germany to start their studies were mainly responsible for the increase in numbers from 2021 to 2022. In 2023, more German students enrolled again. The number of German first-year students was 1.9 percent higher in 2023 compared to the previous year.

There were differences based on individual subject groups. While the above-average numbers of new students in Human Medicine and Health Care rose by three percent and in the Humanities by 2.5 percent, the numbers of new students in Law, Economics and Social Sciences remained about the same with an increase of 0.3 percent. In the art and artistic studies group, there was a slight decrease of 0.6 percent.

In total, more than 2.8 million people studied at universities in the winter term of 2023/2024 – 1.7 per cent fewer than in the winter term of the previous year. While the number of German students decreased by 2.5 percent, the number of foreign students increased by 2.4 percent.

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