Evolution of Student Demographics and Competition in Education Since the 1980s (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Well, they're very important changes because the whole world changed radically. I mean, what you should realise is when we, this department was created in the mid-80s, 84. Then we were recovering from a crisis, so unemployment was relatively high, but it went down pretty soon. And competition was not that high in those days. Competition became more and more important the more time progressed because of the atmosphere in society, basically. Society became more competitive, and you notice that in your student body. That's one element. The other element is that the student body we got changed over time. We started out with Limburg students. Christian Kerkhoff is from Limburg, Bart Verspaag is from Limburg, Huub Meijers is from Limburg. So we started out with Dutch students, and also from Limburg, for instance, and students who liked the teaching system, and we were Dutch. Gradually, we changed to an international student body, and in particular a German student body. And the German students, I think, are different. In particular, we had self-selected German students because they came here and wanted to be taught in English. So that's already an important self-selection. And they also wanted to cross the border to study, so you get a certain brand of students which are quite different from the average student in a normal university. And they were more ambitious. You notice that. And they were more ambitious, and they wanted to have more worth their money also. And that creates a different type of students and also different demand for what you teach.