Since 2000 the number of new students has remained at the same level, but in the last academic year the trend switched and nearly 6 000 more started studies than the year before. Students from abroad account for a large part of the increase. These are the latest findings of new statistics from Swedish National Agency for Higher Education and Statistics Sweden.
In academic year 2007/08 more than 87 000 persons started higher education studies, which is 5 800 more than the previous academic year. Students from abroad accounted for a large part of the increase. The big increase of students from abroad since the end of the 1990s has resulted in them accounting for 25 percent of all new students in academic year 2007/08.
The number of degrees decreased for the second year in a row, but the decrease was only about 1 percent. 66 percent of all degrees were awarded to women. The number of degrees in technical areas continued to decrease. For the fourth year in a row the number of university degrees in engineering decreased, now to approximately 1 700; the lowest number in ten years.
Largest increase in social worker and civil engineering educations
The largest increase of first-year students in professional degree programmes in academic year 2007/08 was in the social worker programme with 470 new entrants and the civil engineer programme with 440 new entrants. The increase in the social worker programme is primarily due to this programme having taken on students from the social care programme, which was discontinued.
Every fifth student studies at second cycle
Academic year 2007/08 was the first academic year after the implementation of the new education levels of first cycle and second cycle. 19 percent of all students study at the second cycle. The percentage of men is higher than that of women. The areas of technology and medicine had the highest percentage of students at the second cycle.
The largest subject of study was, as in earlier years, business studies with over 48 000 students, of which 14 percent studied at the second cycle. After these, education, mathematics and law follow.