Big jump in foreign students at Hungarian universities

20 júl, 2012

Medical universities lead gains as almost 16,000 students from abroad enrolled in country during 2011-2012 academic year.

In the past five years, Semmelweis University, Hungary’s oldest medical school, has boasted the highest number of foreign students among Hungary’s higher education institutions. But the highest rate of increase was seen at the University of Pecs Medical School in southern Hungary, where their number has risen by 61 percent during the period. Demand for places continuously outgrows supply at Hungary’s four medical universities, where a total of 3,843 foreign nationals study, mostly from Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine, Germany, Austria, Sweden and Israel. Nearly 20 percent of them come from Asia.

The number and proportion of foreigners at the medical universities in 2010 are as follows: Budapest (1,373 – 48 percent); Debrecen (910 – 53 percent); Pecs (916 – 61 percent); Szeged (644 – 45 percent) Foreign students generated 24 billion forints (EUR 83m) in revenues to these institutions in 2011. In general, the number of foreign students pursuing higher education in Hungary has nearly doubled in ten years, according to data released by the Human Resources Ministry, rising from 8,556 in the academic year 2001-2002 to 15,889 in 2010-2011. During the same period, the number of Hungarian students has risen from 192,974 in 2001-2001 to 240,727 in 2010-2011.