You are a cash cow for Denmark. You pay fees to universities, you spend money in the shops and you return taxes to the taxman. <\/p>\n
And if you stay on in Denmark after your studies, you will fill out a gap in an increasingly old-age Danish labour market. <\/p>\n
This is according to Annette Galskj\u00f8tt of ThinkTankTalents, a consultant firm behind a new Copenhagen Campus project which is designed to attract foreign students.<\/p>\n
But what is it that will lure you to settle in this small, cold corner of Europe? <\/p>\n
Love.<\/p>\n
\u00bbInternational students tend to hang out with others internationals, but a Danish love affair is a great way to get to know the locals. According to what we have seen and heard, love is the number one motive for staying in the country,\u00ab says Annette Galskj\u00f8tt. <\/p>\n
\u00bbIt is not easy to become integrated in Danish social circles. Having a Danish boyfriend or girlfriend is the best way to get a ready-made network,\u00ab she continues.<\/p>\n
According to Galskj\u00f8tt, your love is a boon to the Danish economy.<\/p>\n
\u00bbInternational students fill the gaps in the labour market that Danes cannot. In 2019, Denmark will lack 105,000 academics,\u00ab she says citing data from the think tank Economic Council of the Labour Movement AE.<\/p>\n
In this sense the new campus can be a kind of \u2018love camp\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u00bbWe need students from abroad to stay here. That is why a campus for Danes and international students is a good idea. If they live together, then there is a place to meet and maybe get together,\u00ab she explains.<\/p>\n
16,000 foreign students come to Denmark to study, either as exchange students or on a full degree course every year.<\/p>\n
If Denmark was able to retain just 10 per cent of these as skilled workers in Denmark, it would increase the Danish Gross Domestic Product by nearly a billion kroner a year, according to ThinkTankTalents\u2019 preliminary study for the new Copenhagen Campus.<\/p>\n
luci@adm.ku.dk<\/p>\n