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UCPH humanities faculty to slash student admissions by 24 per cent

Relocation — A total of 1,590 student places will be cut at the University of Copenhagen. Most of them at the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Science.

The University of Copenhagen (UCPH) is to have 1,590 fewer students in the future.

This is according to the Rector’s Office which has released its plans for complying with a Danish government requirement to either relocate the places, or abolish them.

The vast majority of places to be cut will be at the Faculty of Humanities and at the Faculty of Science. The Faculty of Humanities is to reduce its student intake by 640 places up to 2030 while the Faculty of Science is to reduce by 470 places in the same period.

At the Humanities faculty, this corresponds to one quarter (24 per cent) of all annual student admissions.

The Humanities and Science cuts make up 40 plus 30 per cent, totalling 70 per cent, of all the University of Copenhagen places that are to be cut. The Social Sciences, Theology and Health faculties also face cuts, with only the Faculty of Law exempted. 100 master’s student and 100 bachelor’s student places from the medical degree programme will be moved to the town of Køge, south of Copenhagen. These numbers are likely to be deducted from the 1,590 total.

Unemployment is the key

The unequal distribution between the faculties is due to the university’s management looking at where graduates’ unemployment rates are the highest. It takes longer for graduates from the Humanities and Science faculties to find a job.

»A key part of the political agreement is that universities should better match the needs of employers in the public and private sectors. For this reason, some faculties have a large task ahead of them in reducing the number of student places,« says Prorector for Education Bente Merete Stallknecht in the release which came out on the university’s intranet.

The affected faculties are now to decide on where to find the student places that are to be cut. They need to report this to the Rector by 19 November at the latest.

The Office of the Rectorate is finding out whether some of the places can be retrieved by relocating study programmes – possibly by swapping places with other educational institutions.

»With cuts of this size, UCPH will probably not avoid having to shut down study programmes. Relocation is in most cases not a real option. But we are working on a national action plan where we swap study programmes with other #DKuni so that supply is coordinated,« Rector Henrik C. Wegener writes on Twitter.

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