Indian students are top first-year international students driving Germany’s enrolment growth

More than 40 per cent of Germany’s first-year international students come from Asia. (Photo: Lu Moreno via Unsplash)

First-year international students drive Germany’s enrolment growth
Most of the new students were from India (11,733), followed by China (5,661), with Indian figures on the rise during the past few years

For the 2023-24 winter semester, Germany’s Federal Office of Statistics released preliminary figures that show that 402,617 individuals enrolled at a German university, which represents an increase of 1.1%. Most of the new students were from India (11,733), followed by China (5,661), with Indian figures on the rise during the past few years and Chinese figures gradually declining.

First-year students who were not German nationals reached the record level of around 93,000 individuals in the 2022-23 winter semester. This figure includes both those with a German higher secondary education degree acquired in Germany and those with an equivalent degree obtained elsewhere.

More than 40 per cent of Germany’s first-year international students come from Asia, and at 38,000 in the 2022-23 winter semester statistics, their share was even higher than it had been before the COVID pandemic started.

First-year student numbers continued to rise during the 1990s and the early 2000s, peaking at 445,000 in the 2011-2012 winter semester. Staying at this high level until the 2019-2020 winter semester level, they dropped sharply from then on, falling below 400,000 students again in the 2021-22 winter semester. In the same winter semester, overall student numbers peaked above 2.946 million. Since then, first-year student numbers appear to have settled again at a lower level.