More international students staying in Netherlands after graduation

More and more international students stay in the Netherlands after obtaining their diplomas. Of the people who graduated in 2022, 57 percent still lived and worked in the Netherlands a year later. For international students who completed their studies in 2017, this was 40 percent.

Nuffic, an organization committed to internationalization in higher education, studied the stay rate. Foreign graduates mainly find work in sectors with staff shortages, such as technology, education, and healthcare.

Nuffic also investigated how many people still lived and worked in the Netherlands five years after graduating. For the group from 2018, it was 30 percent. For people who graduated a year earlier, it was around 25 percent.

Initially, foreign graduates earn less than Dutch people with the same skills. But after about five years, they reach the same salary level and in some groups, international graduates eventually surpass the Dutch, Nuffic said.

Most international graduates work in Amsterdam and the surrounding area. About 37 percent of the group ended up there. This is followed by the regions of Rotterdam and The Hague (both 10 percent), Utrecht (8 percent), and Eindhoven (7 percent).

Of the graduates from Suriname, almost 80 percent stay in the Netherlands, making the country the frontrunner. Iran is in second place (71 percent), followed by Ukraine (58 percent), Turkey (52 percent), and Russia (50 percent).