One in five KTH students from abroad
The number of overseas students at Swedish universities and university colleges continues to rise. Blekinge Institute of Technology has the highest percentage with 19.7%, closely followed by KTH with 18.9%.
Fresh statistics from the National Agency for Higher Education (HSV) show that last year almost 28 000 students from other countries studied in Sweden, which is nine percent more than the previous year. Overseas students now form a substantial element – more than seven percent – of all students at Swedish universities. This is three times more than ten years ago.
Most students come from European or Nordic countries; however the greatest increase is from the Asian countries. Currently around 6 000 students from Asia are studying in Sweden which is twelve times as many as in the middle of the 1990s. The majority come from China.
Natural sciences and engineering are becoming increasingly popular subjects among the foreign students – over 40 percent studied in these fields in 2006/07, which is the highest figure for more than ten years. This is connected to the fact that Swedish technical universities are recruiting from abroad as Swedish students’ interest in technical education decreases, states HSV in a press release.
This expanding interest in technical courses also explains why technical universities host the highest proportion of foreign students. Blekinge Institute of Technology, KTH and Chalmers University of Technology have most foreign students in Sweden, while in absolute numbers KTH leads the field with around 3200.
Christer Gummeson