In the winter semester of the 2024/2025 academic year, Bulgaria has 182,000 university students, a slight increase from last year, according to Georgi Stoychev, executive director of the Open Society Institute and head of the team behind the institution's rating system. of higher education in Bulgaria by the Ministry of Education and Science.

In an interview for BTA on the occasion of University Students' Day, December 8, Stoychev emphasized that the number of students in 2012 was close to 250.000.

He attributed the drop in student numbers to continued demographic decline, adding that the situation will worsen after 2028 due to a sharp decline in births after 2008.

Highlighting positive trends for Bulgarian higher education, Stoychev said that, for the first time in the nearly 13-year history of the rating system, the percentage of Bulgarian university graduates working in positions requiring higher education has exceeded 60%. This marks a significant increase compared to 2015, when the figure was 47%, he added. According to him, each successive university level significantly increases the employment prospects of graduates.

He noted that the country is becoming increasingly attractive to foreign students, with nearly one in ten students in Bulgaria now from abroad. In 2024, there are 15.737 foreign students in Bulgaria representing 8,6% of all active students.

This percentage has doubled over the past decade, according to data from the National Center for Information and Documentation, updated annually in the rating system. Among international students, 9.000 come from outside the European Union, while nearly 7.000 are from the EU.

The main fields of study for EU students in Bulgaria include medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine and pharmacy.

Nearly two-thirds of EU students choose to study medicine, making it the most popular field, with almost 4.500 foreign students enrolled. EU students also choose transport, shipping and aviation degrees.

Medicine remains the top choice for students from non-EU countries, with one in three students enrolling in this field. Dentistry ranks second. /BTA