Amsterdam, Netherlands - SEO Economisch Onderzoek

4.4 Student recruitment and regional employmentThe regional importance of HEIs in terms of recruitment and the relation to employment can beviewed in different ways. If institutes draw a large share of people from the region, ties with theregion are obviously stronger than if most people come from outside the region. However, thereis a difference between ties and importance. It may be important for a region to attract studentsfrom outside the region, for example to supply the region with a well-educated labor force. Ifpeople with a degree subsequently stay in the region, ties are again stronger than if people wouldleave the region. The latter is sometimes called a ‘brain drain’. This is only a good thing for aregion in very specific (and uncommon) circumstances, namely if there is a regional oversupplyof people with a higher education degree.4.4.1 Student recruitment4.4.1.1 Recruitment of national studentsUvA and VU essentially recruit students nation-wide, although the strongest emphasis is placedon regional recruitment. For these universities, the largest inflow of students stems from theprovince of Noord-Holland and Northern parts of Zuid-Holland. This is due to the relativelysmall travel distance. Students from provinces that are further away often have to travel morethan one hour and finding accommodation in Amsterdam proves to be difficult, given the excessdemand for student housing. Since the introduction of the Bachelor-Master system in highereducation mobility between education institutes in the Netherlands has increased. For theAmsterdam region, this seems to have been a positive development: the amount of people fromother provinces who move to the province of Noord-Holland to study and subsequently work islarger than the group of people who are from and study in Noord-Holland but subsequently leaveto another province to work (Figure 4-2 and Figure 4-3). The market for Bachelor students isclearly more regionally in scope than the market for Master students. Master students often moveinto temporary housing for the duration of one year, which makes it easier to findaccommodation. Furthermore, these students are often planning to work in the Amsterdam regionafter graduation, which also lowers the threshold to move to Amsterdam for a Master programme.To recruit Bachelor students, UvA follows a proactive contact strategy to maximize their marketshare in the Amsterdam region in order to take full advantage of the pool of students for the selfselectionprocess. The VU and UvA both organize information days for students nation-wideseveral times a year. Besides this, they also maintain close contact with high schools in theregion. give an indication of the regional origin and destination of students from the VU.91