Photo: cover of Resource magazine from 18 juni 2015.
The Erasmus scholarships are meant for students that spend one or two education semesters abroad or follow an internship. In absolute numbers the University of Maastricht is the largest customer of the Erasmus scholarship for students, as was found in the figures of Internationalization organization EP-Nuffic. But relatively seen, the Wageningen students use the Erasmus scholarship most often. One out of every four students received an Erasmus scholarship this year, compared to one out of every five students in Maastricht.
Our studies are strongly oriented abroad and the work field is the world’, says Cor Langeveld, until recently the exchange coordinator at Wageningen University. ‘The teachers have a lot of contact with foreign universities, companies and institutions. There are also a lot of foreign people here. This gives an international atmosphere that makes many of our Dutch students want to go abroad.’
The three technical universities scored around the university average score of one out of eleven students. At the Amsterdam Vrije University (one out of twenty) and University Leiden (one out of nineteen)
there are a lot less students with an Erasmus scholarship.
Frans Snijders from the international office of the VU confirmed this, but point out that the interest among the students is larger than the figures show. ‘At the moment there are almost four hundred students on exchange or internship in Europe, more than one hundred more than last year. Because the grants of the Erasmus money is based on the figures of last year, we now actually receive too little. We fit the difference, because every student receives a scholarship. ’According to Snijder the interest among students has partially increased since all VU courses now have a fifth semester available for exchange.
The large amounts of Erasmus scholarships at the University of Aruba is notable. With 102 scholarships, two out of three students go on exchange to Europe.
In the hbo (professional training) an average of one out of eighteen students receive a scholarship. The students of Hogeschool der Kunsten Den Haag tops it all: one out of three students ‘goes on Erasmus’.
Wageningen students are most mobile
Half jaartje naar het buitenland steeds populairder