In 2022, the universities in Moldova saw a decrease in the number of students. The figure declined by 2,900 after it had grown for two years. Currently, the Republic of Moldova has 56,800 students, as opposed to 59,600 students in 2021. This is the lowest number of students recorded after 1997- 1998, expert of the Institute for Development and Social Initiatives “Viitorul” Veaceslav Ioniță stated in the program “Economic analyses with Veaceslav Ioniță”. According to the expert, there are three factors that contributed to a decrease in the number of students: lifting of pandemic restrictions, demographic decline and migration, IPN reports.
In 2020-2021, owing to the epidemiological restrictions, a considerable part of the young people could not go to study abroad and remained to study in Moldova. “2020 was the first year when the number of students grew. The same situation was witnessed in 2021. In 2022, the downward trend from before the pandemic returned,” stated Veaceslav Ioniță.
The demographic decline is the second factor that contributed to a reduction in the number of students. In 2008-2009, the Republic of Moldova had 426,000-427,000 young people aged between 19 and 24. The number of these declined to 234,000 at the moment. This means the number of young people aged between 19 and 24 decreased by 200,000.
Migration is the third factor. In Moldova, there are about 155,000 young people and another 79,500 are abroad. In 2010, 11.6% of the country’s population was aged between 19 and 24. Now the figure declined to 6%.
While the Moldovan young people go abroad to study, there are young people from other countries who chose to study in Moldova. 2,100 students came from Romania, 2,000 – from Israel, 700 – from India. Of the 56,800 current students, about 5,400 are foreigners, noted Veaceslav Ioniță.
