The most popular program of study among the Germans on campus is Psychology. Eighty percent (161 students) enrolled for this study are Germans. The amount of international students enrolled for Public Administration and Public Policy, including European Studies, is 75 percent (137 first-year students), but that also includes other nationalities. Still, most of them are Germans. The third and fourth most popular studies are Applied Communication Science and Advanced Technology, with respective percentages of 39 and 17. The figures are based on the amount of pre-enrolments and can fluctuate. In 2006 the percentage of first-year German students at the UT was only 15 percent.
For a couple of years, the UT has a special Duitsland-Team, which consists mostly of students. This D-Team (from Duitsland, the Dutch word for Germany) offer information to nearly eighty German schools and recruit students at German study fairs. According to team leader Anika Rogulski (her team is part of the Communication Department), they never planned for such a large number of German students to come to the UT. `It's good that they come here, but it shouldn't be necessary for a lecturer to start his lecture with “Guten Morgen” instead of “Goedemorgen”.'
`According to its International Policy, the UT strives for a 20 percent inflow of international students over the next couple of years,' says Rogulski, `who are evenly spread out over the different educational programs and are from different countries.' She continues, `But the easiest recruiting is done in Germany. We have a good recruitment team and German students are the only ones that want and are able to learn Dutch fast,'
To acquire an even spread among educational programs, the beta study programs need more recruitment. Rogulski notes, `Many German students choose for a technological study because it leads to a good paying job. We have to make these students feel enthusiastic about studying over the border.'
The D-Team wants to recruit more technological students, but the question remains, how to decrease the number of Psychology students to the required 20 percent? Rogulski does not see the need for a discouraging policy, `You cannot stop the inflow of German students. We just need to recruit Dutch students for Psychology in order to lower the percentage.' That is another way of looking at it.
