Last year there were 123,000 international students in Dutch higher education, an increase of 8,000 on the year before and representing 15% of the student population, reports the CBS.

Three quarters of the students, following a university course or HBO training, came from Europe and the largest group was from Germany.

International master’s students often followed technical, industrial and building studies, while journalism, law and business studies were popular among both international and local students at university in general.

There are however concerns about the levels of international students and that not enough courses are being offered in Dutch. Due to a national housing shortage, some students were warned last year to stay away unless they had a place to live. Last month, there were reportedly seven-hour queues for students to register at Amsterdam municipality.

A cap on international students is likely to come in certain subjects. Earlier this year, education minister Robbert Dijkgraaf proposed that typical Bachelor degrees should not have more than a third of courses offered in other languages such as English.

But some universities raised pressing concerns that the quality of education and research would decrease if they were subject to language limits.

An internet consultation about the education proposals is running until mid-September and so far has 101 public reactions.