The 2018-2019 academic year - summary

There were 1,230.3 thousand students in higher education institutions in the 2018/19 academic year i.e. by 4.8% fewer than a year earlier. Starting from the 2006/07 academic year, a decline in the number of students has been recorded, which was influenced by demographic changes (a decrease in the population aged 19-24).

Women accounted for 58.0% of all students. 73.3% of all students were enrolled in public schools.

Business and administration (17.9% of total number of students), health (10.9%), behavioural sciences (10.0%) as well as engineering and engineering trades (9.7%) were most often chosen narrow fields.

The number of foreign students in Polish higher education institutions increased in the 2018/19 academic year by 7.6% in relation the previous academic year and stood at 78.3 thousand, i.e. 6.3% of all students. The students from Europe were prevalent – 61.0 thousand persons in total (78.0%), the most from Ukraine – 39.2 thousand students (50.1%).

In the 2018/19 academic year, 540.9 thousand students learned modern foreign languages in obligatory courses (i.e. 44.0% of all students – excluding foreigners). Their number fell by 2.2% in comparison with the previous academic year. 93.9% of students learning foreign languages attended only one foreign language course, accounting for 41.3% of the student population. A much smaller percentage of students learned two foreign languages (6.0%).

The number of graduates in the 2017/18 academic year reached 327.7 thousand and was 15.4% smaller than in the 2016/17 academic year.

Students with disabilities accounted for 1.8% of all students, whereas the graduates with disabilities - 0.7% of all graduates.

The number of postgraduate students in the 2018/19 academic year increased by 1.1% in relation to the previous year and reached 161.2 thousand. Female students constituted 72.3% of all postgraduate students.

Doctoral students in higher education institutions, research institutes, scientific units of Polish Academy of Sciences and the Medical Centre of Postgraduate Education amounted to 39.3 thousand, which represented a 5.0% decline on the previous academic year.

In the 2018/19 academic year, 228.0 thousand students received scholarships, by 8.6% fewer than in the previous academic year. 9.2 thousand doctoral students received scholarships, 76.7% of which were scholarships for outstanding doctoral students.

A total of 93.2 thousand academic teachers were employed in higher education institutions, including 2.1 thousand foreigners. There were 13 students per academic teacher.

The revenues of higher education institutions totalled PLN 24,591.9 million (of which PLN 22,057.7 million were generated by public higher education institutions), by 5.3 more than in the previous year. Total costs reached PLN 23,885.8 million (including PLN 21,425.6 million costs incurred by public higher education institutions), by 5.4% more than in the previous year.

The average educational costs per student amounted to PLN 20,446.0, by 7.8% more than in the previous year.