Current Policy

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

As of today, the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences consists of 79% international students. Though this number is considerably large, German, Belgian and French students total to 60% out of 79%. Despite diversity being encouraged at Maastricht University, currently the existing student recruitment framework seems to attract mostly students from these nationalities. This is of importance as the Diversity Office aims to increase cooperation between different students, through fostering cultural change. However, as these populations are largely homogenous, this presents a challenge to the current policy of fostering cultural change.

            Students’ responses have shown that internationalization constitutes an important factor when applying at FaSoS (UM). However, distance and travelling time have shown to diminish the importance of this factor. Moreover, we have found that the older the students are, the less important they find the international character in their application (though this effect is only minor). As of such, we can conclude that it is often students from closer by who opt for Maastricht University, perhaps taking into account that it is the most international university in their (in)direct surroundings.

            The direct effects of these factors regarding application are that the student population at FASoS is thus largely homogenous. This creates a challenge in fostering cultural change, and moreover creates an obstacle in overcoming differences and cooperation with those different from yourself. This constitutes a significant issue for the University, as the growing student population has shown an increasing need for diversity and inclusivity. Moreover, as UM promotes itself as being an international University, it can only fully become so when it truly embraces the diversity within the international student population.