Parliamentary agreement to reduce the number of university places in Denmark draws criticism from the business sector.

According to DR, parliamentary parties reached an agreement this afternoon to reduce the number of university places in a number of disciplines at Danish universities, specifying the number of places to be eliminated at each university. This has been met with considerable criticism from the business sector. In total, 2,654 university places will be eliminated over the next five years.

Overall, there will be a total reduction of 10% in program enrollment from 2025 to 2029, meaning that universities across the country will lose hundreds of students starting next year. With the number of seats different universities set to lose determined, it appears that Roskilde University and Aalborg University will lose the largest number of seats.

Morten Høyer, policy director of Danish Industry (Dansk Industri), told DR that this could result in some educational programs being overlooked, of which the business sector already lacks staff. He added that it is not good to assign a number to each individual educational institution, rather than identifying which educational programs should be cut.

Laura Klitgaard, president of the IDA engineering association, told the source that it is simply incomprehensible that politicians are now closing the door on education programs that provide the workforce needed to solve major societal challenges: “The Danish business sector is short of people working in IT and engineering, and then we see the education agreement today, which could actually mean that we are getting fewer than we need. It’s a shame.” She points out that politicians have not yet decided which programs will be canceled, and that the decision will then be up to the universities themselves.

The same point was made by Jakob Brandt, managing director at SMVdanmark: “Unfortunately, we are saddened that some of the education that the business sector is clamoring for is being sidelined, and this applies, among other things, to engineering programs at DTU, CBS, and ITU. We are rather saddened by this.” However, Jakob Brandt of SMVdanmark believes that reducing university education in general is a positive thing: “We are harming young people by allowing them to enroll in education where it becomes really difficult to get a job where you can use what you learned after five years at university. For this reason, it is wise to close the door before they enter and instead put them in education where there are jobs for them on the other side.”.

The universities most affected by the reduction in the number of seats

Roskilde University and Aalborg University are the most affected when you look at the total number of study places, with the number of seats in them being reduced by 14.1% and 12.1% respectively per year from 2025 to 2029.

Universities with the most technical programs lose the fewest seats. At DTU University of Technology, seats are reduced by 6.5% annually, equivalent to 87 places, while at IT-Universitet in Copenhagen, there is a reduction of 6.7%, equivalent to 25 seats.

Although it had the fewest seats lost among universities, the Engineers Association (IDA) appears displeased, with its president, Laura Klitgaard, stating in a press release: “It is simply incomprehensible that politicians are now closing the door on education programs that provide the workforce that will solve major societal challenges.”.