Number of International Students Has Doubled in Twelve Years
Translation: Jean-Rémi Chareyre
1. Twice as many international students
The number of students of foreign origin registered at the University of Iceland was 1.021 in 2011 but had increased to 2.019 by 2023. The number of Icelandic students has however declined by 10% during the same period. Accordingly, the share of international students in the total number of students has increased significantly.
2. International students 14% of total ‒ significant gender gap among Icelandic students
Students of foreign origin made up only 6% of the student community in 2012 but their share had grown to 14% in January 2023. By the beginning of fall semester however, their number had decreased slightly, from 2.019 down to 1.897 in nóvember.
Only about a quarter of international students are exchange students (450 exchange students in 2022) and 64% of them are women (36% men), while almost 70% of Icelandic students are women and 30% men (0,1% are non-binary).
3. Strong presence of international students in graduate studies
International students represent a large share of graduates (27,5%) and especially of Ph.D. students (40%). However, their share is only 12,5% among undergraduate students.
Almost half of international students from Western Europe
Over half of international students come from Europe and most of them from Western European nations (43% of total). By contrast, only 5% originate from Africa (the largest single group being the 37 students from Ghana). At the global scale, the main countries of origin are, respectively, the United States (211 students), Germany (177 students) and the Philippines (133 students). The next most common nationalities are European ones as well as China (67 students).
The share of foreign nationals in Iceland has reached 18,4% ‒ majority from Eastern Europe
When statistics from the University of Iceland are compared to nationwide statistics concerning the numbers and origins of foreign nationals, the picture is relatively different. By October 2023, foreign nationals represented an 18,4% share of the total Icelandic population, and of those roughly 65.000 foreign nationals, more than half originated from Eastern Europe. The most numerous were Polish citizens (23.352), Lithuanian citizens (5.218) and Romanian citizens (3.667). Outside of Europe, the most numerous were citizens from Venezuela (1.261) and the Philippines (1.232).
Lithuanians a hundred times more likely to move to Iceland than British nationals
When the number of nationals from each country is expressed as a share of the population in that same country, the resulting statistics give an insight into who is the most likely to move to Iceland (as the total population in each country varies greatly, the number of nationals from each country is to some extent misleading as to which nationals are the most and the least likely to move to Iceland). The result shows that citizens from a few counties in Eastern Europe are about 1000 times more likely to move to Iceland than others. For each million Lithuanians who live in their home country, 1.863 live in Iceland while only 18 out of each million British citizens and 3 out of each million Americans live in Iceland. The Chinese are also rather unlikely to move to Iceland (0,3 per million), as well as citizens from most African countries (0-10 per million).
