Latvia is the last place foreign students want to go - journalist 0 304

He acknowledged that he himself participated in several events as a moderator, where the attraction of foreign students to Latvia within the framework of the Erasmus program was discussed. And in this area, Latvia has an unpleasant problem — in the choice of European students, Latvia ranks last among the countries they want to go to study.

Bogustovs joked about the claim that attracting foreign students is one of the success stories of Latvian higher education.

Latvia should realistically assess its ability to compete with more popular European study destinations. And Latvian students themselves are more inclined to choose countries with a warmer climate and better living conditions.

"Everyone wants to go study in Spain and Italy. Why do we think that German girls don’t want to study in Spain? Because it’s warm, it’s great, there’s sangria, there’s, well, I don’t know, the beach, you don’t have to pay for heating," said Bogustovs.

Therefore, Latvia has to compete with what it truly has that is special — unique study programs and research centers. This is especially important for a small country that cannot offer as wide a range of study programs as the largest universities in the world.

He pointed out that Latvia cannot compete with universities located in cities like Paris, which can offer almost any field of study. "We cannot be like the Sorbonne University, which can do everything," he said.

At the same time, Bogustovs acknowledged: if the government wants to limit, for political reasons, for example, the number of students from India, this is understandable in the context of migration policy. However, such a decision cannot have only one side.

"If the goal was to politically prohibit, say, Indians from coming to study in Latvia, then, of course, one must also consider that Latvia needs to reduce the number of universities," he said.

Foreign students have still provided Latvian universities not only with students but also with a significant cash flow. Therefore, when changing state policy, it is necessary to consider what will happen to universities if this funding is significantly reduced.

He reminded that Latvia has invested for years in attracting foreign students, including from European countries. These investments helped Latvian universities become more recognizable internationally, and some universities, such as Stradiņš University, even ranked high in German rankings.

Therefore, Bogustovs finds it absurd if the already established system is now spoiled in an attempt to solve other political issues: "The ministry has a lot of other work that they are not handling, and now they will spoil this as well," said Bogustovs on the program.