University of Basel starts fall semester 2024 with rising enrolments

Enrolments indicate a further increase in student numbers in the 2024/25 academic year. The number of new students registered for Bachelor's degree programs so far is 1681, exceeding the very good figures from the previous year. In comparison, in 2023, 1630 students enrolled in a Bachelor's degree course at the start of the semester.

Registrations for Master's programs have also increased significantly compared to the previous year. In September, 486 students from domestic and foreign universities enrolled, surpassing the definitive number of admissions from December last year, which was 451. As a result, the total number of students is expected to surpass the 13,000 mark in 2024.

The University of Basel currently has 12,764 students, compared to 12,434 at the start of last year's fall semester. The number of students is set to increase as further enrolments at the Bachelor's, Master's, and doctoral levels are expected in the first few weeks of the semester.

At the start of the semester, new students can once again look forward to an attractive supporting program, which begins with the opening ceremony at Theater Basel and extends over the entire first week of the semester.

In 2024, psychology, economics and law will be particularly popular among first-year Bachelor's students. The natural sciences subjects of biology and pharmaceutical sciences also record high numbers of first-year students.

Within the humanities and social sciences, history, English, sociology, and political science attract a great deal of interest, followed by German philology, media studies, gender studies, geography, and philosophy.

At the Master's level, psychology, economics, law, pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences, molecular biology, sports science, and computer science are in high demand. In addition to traditional Master's degree programs, courses such as European Global Studies and Sustainable Development, Educational Sciences, and Nursing Science are also very popular with students.

These courses address current social issues on the one hand and reflect the University of Basel's research priorities on the other. The Master's degree program in Biomedical Engineering, which is run jointly with the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, again recorded very good figures.

The proportion of women among students and doctoral students is 58%. Of the students who enrolled at the beginning of the semester, 21 percent come from the canton of Basel-Landschaft, 16 percent from the canton of Basel-Stadt, 14 percent from the cantons of Aargau and Solothurn and 23 percent from the rest of Switzerland. 26 percent obtained their university entrance qualification abroad.

Further information

Matthias Geering, University of Basel, Head of Communications & Marketing, phone: +41 61 207 35 75, mobile: +41 79 269 70 71, email: matthias.geering@unibas.ch