Some 3,000 students in the Netherlands are now attending university colleges – which offer a campus-based education for fees double that of traditional universities, the Volkskrant reports on Wednesday.

Last year, Erasmus University in Rotterdam joined in the trend and Groningen has now followed suit. Many of the students attending university colleges are foreign, attracted by the English-language education and broad, liberal arts degrees, the paper says.

The first college was opened by Utrecht University in 1997 and has some 700 students. Amsterdam and the VU opened a joint college five years ago which has a similar number. There are also university colleges in The Hague (Leiden University), Middelburg (Utrecht University) and Maastricht.