University Enrollment Drops Sharply in Taiwan

University Enrollment Drops Sharply in Taiwan

Source: United Daily News

December 30, 2016

According to statistics released Thursday by the Ministry of Education (MOE), in terms of registration rates for undergraduate programs, 17 universities across the nation saw less than a 60 percent enrollment rate, among which Nan Jeon University of Science and Technology (南榮科技大學) was the worst, with an 18.74 percent enrollment rate. Moreover, several universities and colleges in Taiwan failed to enroll any student in some of their doctoral programs for the 2016-2017 academic year.

According to the statistics, for the 2017-2018 academic year, the number of freshmen will come in under 250,000, 14,000 fewer than the 2016-2017 academic year, a record low. The MOE announced that it would cut the number of allocated undergraduate and graduate students by 9,840 for the upcoming year. However, this policy cannot forestall the impact of the nation’s low birth rates.

The statistics also showed zero enrollments in 151 departments and graduate programs at universities and technical and vocational colleges, most of which were master and doctoral programs, including 64 public and 87 private institutions. Among them, National Taiwan University (NTU), the top university in Taiwan, had the most doctoral programs with zero enrollments, including theater and drama, anthropology, sociology, social work, ecology, art history, evolutionary biology and translational medicine.

For the 2016-2017 academic year, NTU had only 14 undergraduate programs with 100 percent enrollment rates. However, the most popular undergraduate programs in NTU, namely electrical engineering and medicine, failed to reach 100 percent enrollment rates. In terms of doctoral programs, every university experienced a decline in its enrollment rates. The enrollment rates of doctoral programs in National Chengchi University, National Taiwan University, and National Chiao Tung University were under 80 percent. The enrollment rates of doctoral programs in National Cheng Kung University were only 58 percent, the lowest among universities in Taiwan.

Kuo Hung-chi (郭鴻基), Vice President of National Taiwan University for Academic Affairs, said that the prospects for Taiwan’s economy were "not good," so students became less willing to pursue doctoral programs, particularly in the humanities. Kuo opined that many students were more pragmatic and employment opportunities were their top consideration. However, Kuo said that because NTU had more departments and programs, it would have more departments and programs with zero enrollments, adding that this did not mean that NTU was the worst. Kuo stressed that cultivating talent in the humanities was still very important, and that for the long-term development of the country, NTU would not cut the number of students or stop enrolling new students in certain fields because people thought some areas were not important. 

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