Surge in international enrollment seen in master’s programmes

The number of new fee-paying international master’s students—primarily from outside of the European market—rose by 40 percent over the previous year. Åsa Andersson, head of international student recruitment at KTH, says these 917 newly-enrolled students account for a significant proportion of the overall increase of 22 % percent who are now studying in the master’s programmes at KTH.

International student enrollment growth at KTH

Overall, KTH admitted 3,423 students from an unprecedented 12,854 qualified applications for the master’s programmes following a decision to open up more spaces. Andersson says what followed was a welcome surprise: a larger share of admitted students followed through and registered.

“This exceed our expectations,” she says. “We had foreseen an increase, but it was greater than expected.”

Andersson adds that the growth in enrollment has not been without its challenges, especially for the schools and programmes that have seen a very large increase. Adjustments were needed in order to provide support, sufficient lecture hall space and housing, for instance. “You could call it a positive challenge that KTH needed to address,” she says. “Overall it’s a positive development.”

Factors behind higher enrollment

Besides the fact that KTH made room for more students, she says there appears to be varying reasons for the large increase. Migration rules around the world, for example, may be impacting students’ options for study abroad, she says. Other factors may be more granular in nature, including for example the long-running cooperation with a scholarship organization in Indonesia that has yielded a higher number of scholars from that country.

While the increases will require further analysis to fully understand, Andersson says KTH’s own efforts to reach out and recruit internationally are clearly having an effect. Among these efforts are the ‘Connect with KTH’ project, which connects student ambassadors with admitted students for online peer-to-peer counseling.

“Communications with – and support to – admitted students is something we’ve always done, but we now have added new activities and platforms,” she says. The KTH recruitment team has for instance enabled its students to network with—and support each other—via the Goin’ Connect student-led community.

Drawn to “real-world” training and individual focus

Interviews with new students indicate many appreciated the access to information. Ahmad Fadhlullah, a civil engineering student from Indonesia, says he was able to pull together all the information he needed within a week, thanks to the web and to access to actual students in his chosen programme. What he found was a university that aligned with his own values.

“My programme at KTH is giving me hands-on knowledge that relates to practice in the field … it emphasizes what is happening in the real world,” Fadhlullah says. “Also, work-life balance and a culture of sustainability are my top priorities for future growth, and Sweden fits the need perfectly.”

Regina Crespo, a master’s student from Mexcico, says the biostatistics and data science programme is what drew her to study at KTH. “I didn’t choose KTH or Sweden, I chose the programme,” she says. ”

She says a key reason is the opportunity to learn the theoretical foundations of working with data in medicine. Crespo says she was also drawn by the focus on individual effort responsibility.

“The theoretical foundations are important for what comes next in the masters,” she says. “Personally, I’ve struggled a little with this topics, since I come from an applied area. That is why I believe that in order to better learn, there needs to be a focus on individual effort and responsibility.

David Callahan

Related: Top class welcoming of students – KTH President Anders Söderholm's blog (kth.se)