The number of students hit an all-time low in Hungary

In the past couple of years the government has been saving money on the students’ expense. It was before the year 2000 since the number of students in higher education was as low as in 2015, writes vg.hu.

The number of students in higher education decreased with 10.000 within a year, and only 295.000 people are studying in different colleges and universities. Their number was below 300.000 only in the academic year of 1998/1999.

This tendency is in harmony with the government’s policy: the cabinet would increase the number of skilled workers who have a high school diploma on the expense of higher education students. Peter Radó, education researcher, said that in the past couple of years the number of students in higher education has decreased twice as much as it could have been demographically justified.

According to KSH’s (Hungarian Central Statistical Office) statistics in the academic year of 2015/2016 the number of students was 210.000, which is 7.000 less than in the previous year. 93% of them (195.000) are currently doing their BA or MA studies, or chose an MA with teaching qualification. The number of correspondence students have decreased by 4.000 compared to the previous year. Radó is expecting this number to keep decreasing, because the government intends to shrink the number of students.