Students across Öresund
In addition to an increasing number of students, integration has also occurred in the area of education.
When studying that trends off the number of Danes who study in all of Sweden, and Swedes who study in Denmark, we see the effects of the Öresund Bridge - especially among Swedes who study in Denmark. The group of Swedish students has increased from 900 to nearly 1 600 over the last ten years. The number of registered Danes who study in Sweden the bearing is a bit more, ranging from 600 to 1 500 students.
- Number of Swedes studying in Denmark and Danes studying in Sweden, the national level.
Source: Örestat
Many of the Swedish students come to Denmark’s largest education city Copenhagen, just as many Danish students seem to come to the large university towns in Sweden.
To get a picture of how many students chose to study on the other side of the Öresund region, statistics have been collected from the agencies responsible for student loans/grants.
The graph below shows the number of Swedish and Danish students who receive student loans/grants for education in the Öresund region on the other side of the Sound. As seen in the graph, the number of Swedish students studying in Öresund DK has increased particularly from 2002 to 2009. A number of Swedish students receiving loans/grants for an education on the Danish part of the Öresund region has increased from about 1 000 persons in 2002 to about 1 800 persons in 2009. The number of Danish students that receive loans/grants for an education in Öresund SE is low; the figure for the entire period has been less than 200 persons. The figures apply to students that moved across the Sound and to students who still live in their home country, and commute to their studies on the other side of the Sound.
- The number of Danish and Swedish students of higher education on the other side of Öresund, with student loans and/or grants from home country (4)
Source: Swedish National Board of Student Aid and Danish Education Support Agency. Danish figures are estimates and are thus marred by uncertainty.
In particular, the number of Danish students who receive grants/loans for education on the Swedish side of the region is clearly below the total number of Danes studying in Sweden. This could be an indication that many of the Danes that receive grants/loans for an education in Sweden study at an education institute outside of the Öresund region, for example in Stockholm. The combined number of registered Swedish students studying in Denmark and the number of Swedish students who received grants/loans for an education in Öresund DK is by and large in agreement. This shows that the majority of Swedes who study in Denmark applied to schools in the Öresund region.
We can get somewhat of an idea about commuting of students across Öresund by looking at a number of commuter passes for the Öresund Bridge sold to students. In 2008 that figure for the number of Swedish commuter passes for students was about 800 per month, while the number of Danish commuter passes for students was about 200 per month (5).
In 2008 the number of Swedish students who received grants/loans for education in the Danish part of the Öresund region was roughly 1600, while the number of Danish students that received grants/loans for an education in the Swedish part of the Öresund region was less than 200.
However, a difference is seen between the number of students who receive grants/loans and the number of commuter passes sold to students among the Swedish students. This could indicate that about half of the Swedish students who receive grants/loans have chosen to move to the Danish part of the Öresund region and take along their Swedish grants/loans, while the others commute to an education in Öresund DK. The number of Danish students receiving grants/loans or studies in Swedish part of the Öresund region and the number of Danish commuter passes sold to students is by and large the same.
In addition, students who do not receive grants/loans for a complete education of course also participate in the education across Öresund. Examples of these students are those who study individual courses at an institute of education on the other side of the Sound. However, it has not been possible to find any information about this group.
(4) It has not been possible to obtain information about Danish students before 2006.
(5) Source: DSBFirst. It is also possible to buy commuter passes for students on the ferries between Helsingborg and Helsingör, but the number of passes sold to students is low. In 2008 the number of Swedish commuter passes sold to students was less than 60 per month and the number of Danish passes sold to students was less than 20 per month.
