Half of the university students in the state do not get into the degree program they applied for as their first choice

BarcelonaThis is the main fear of the tens of thousands of students who take the entrance exam each year: Not obtaining the grade that would open the doors to studying the university degree they wantNow, however, a report has quantified this fear: last year, almost half of the university students in Spain did not gain admission to their first-choice degree program. Specifically, according to the study by the Knowledge and Development Foundation (CyD), 245,226 places were offered for undergraduate degrees at public universities in the 2024-2025 academic year, an offer that received 474,319 applications. Therefore, last year, 229,053 students across Spain were unable to access their first-choice degree program. Behind these figures lie two key factors, also highlighted in the report. On the one hand, the document points out that the number of university degrees offered by public universities has remained stable in recent years, and on the other, that the demand for access to degree programs has grown by 26% in the last decade nationwide. Public universities offering in-person instruction show a mismatch between supply and demand: while applications for degree programs have increased by 25.9%, the number of available places has decreased slightly (-0.6%)," the study's authors report.

Three applicants per place

They also emphasize that this trend has led to increased university enrollment and reduced access to students' first-choice programs. In this regard, the report highlights how last year the occupancy rate for first-year university students—those entering through pre-registration and for the first time—reached 94.4%, the highest percentage in ten years. Analyzing by field, the sectors where demand for university degrees has grown the most are health sciences (especially nursing and medicine) and computer science and sciences (particularly mathematics and statistics, followed by physics and chemistry). The only field where university demand has decreased is arts and humanities. In fact, the study also warns that in more than 30% of fields at public universities, there is less than one applicant per place. On the other hand, they denounce that "the public offering is insufficient to meet the demand" in the areas of health, computer science, and science, where there are more than three applicants per place, which "favors transfers to private universities and deepens social inequalities."