Belgrade University rector: It would be an honor to join the student ticket

Pro-government media and officials are constantly misleading the public, presenting false information that interest in our university schools and colleges has collapsed, that there is an insufficient number of students, and that students are leaving. This is absolutely not true. Their rhetoric only serves to show their true attitude toward higher education and Serbia’s public universities. I will share some data showing why this isn’t true. This year, the University of Belgrade enrolled exactly 89,366 students across all levels -undergraduate, Master’s, and PhD. Compared to last year’s 89,639, that is a decrease of only 0.3 percent. Regarding freshmen, we enrolled 11,990 students compared to last year’s 12,272 – a drop of about 2.3 percent. This decline has been a consistent trend for eight years now, and it is not a result of the blockades. It is the result of two social factors: depopulation, which means there are fewer potential students entering the system, and the increasing number of private higher education institutions opening up.