VUB grows for the eighth year in a row

The Vrije Universiteit Brussel has grown for the eighth academic year in a row, and that is unprecedented. Currently, there are a total of 20,085 students enrolled; in 2013, there were 16,352. 2,345 new first-time students have enrolled this year, which is about 2% more than last year. The bachelors in engineering and language & literature have both seen notable growth in student numbers, each growing by more than 30%.

Vice-rector for education and student policy Jan Danckaert is pleased with this. “It shows that young people are confident about coming to study in metropolitan and multilingual Brussels, and especially at VUB. We remain committed to personalised guidance for our students and are committed to in-person education on campus and at locations in Brussels, supported by digital learning materials: what’s known as blended learning. We want our students to have a real student experience, full of individual growth in terms of both knowledge and personal development.’

Social Science and Solvay Business School remains the largest faculty, with nearly 6,000 enrolments, followed by Law & Criminology and Psychology & Educational Sciences, with more than 3,000 and 2,400 enrolments respectively. The bachelor of social science in collaboration with UGent continues to do remarkably well.

There are some surprises in the percentage increases. We are delighted to see renewed interest in the bachelor of engineering, which has grown by almost 40%. The bachelor of computer science continues to do well, as it did last year, with growth of over 30%. This is welcome news, because there is a real need for engineers and IT experts in society. VUB is well aware of this. With sister university ULB, we are launching a postgraduate diploma, Women in IT, next academic year, in which non-IT graduates can take further training.

Finally, there is the bachelor of language & literature, which also scores remarkably well with growth of 35%. The Faculty of Languages and Humanities, of which this course is part, has put a lot of effort into recruitment in recent years, and as a result the programmes in the faculty are doing very well, including the multilingual master’s that are attracting a lot of students. Enrolment for the educational master’s degree in our Multidisciplinary Institute for Teacher Training (with campuses in Etterbeek, Jette, Anderlecht, Diest and Leuven) is up by more than 10%, which is good news for the teacher shortage.