The new Danish government’s proposal to slow the rollout of a controversial higher education reform and to expand STEM places has been welcomed by universities, but there are concerns that the coalition is overlooking struggling humanities disciplines.

An extra 2,000 undergraduate places in STEM subjects will be created by the centre-left administration that finally formed last week after months of negotiations.

The Social Democratic Party-led coalition, under prime minister Mette Frederiksen, has also proposed delaying the introduction of a reform that would replace many traditional two-year master’s degree programmes with shorter or professionally oriented alternatives.

Under the original plan announced in 2023, 20 per cent of master’s courses in 2028 would be given over to new tracks, with half going to shorter programmes and half to new professional master’s degrees. By 2032, a further 5 per cent would have been allocated to both, leaving just 70 per cent of traditional programmes.

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The government now intends to propose that 90 per cent of students in 2028 should still be able to choose a traditional two-year, full-time course, a move that still needs to be agreed by all parties.

The 2023 reforms also included a 10 per cent reduction in bachelor’s admissions, a measure that has contributed to a significant fall in some university programmes, particularly languages.

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“The new government certainly gives universities reasons for cautious optimism,” said Maja Horst, the dean of Aarhus University’s Faculty of Arts.

“It has signalled a willingness to invest in higher education and research, although much of the new funding is directed towards STEM fields. Even so, it is encouraging to see a government that views universities as an important part of Denmark’s future development.”

But Horst pointed out that humanities was “hardly” mentioned in the government’s proposals.

“I would like to see a stronger focus on the fact that competencies taught in humanities are crucial for dealing with the most severe crises we face, such as climate change, democratic decline and social fragmentation due to generative AI and other new technologies.”

She added that it was important not to reduce the debate to labour market outcomes alone. “There was a legitimate need to rethink some programmes, but the reductions have been extensive,” she said.

A found that total undergraduate enrolment dropped by 16 per cent between 2015 and 2025, with humanities disciplines the worst affected. There was a 46 per cent decline in humanities enrolment over the same period.

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Jesper Langergaard, director of Universities Denmark, said he does not see the drop in humanities as a crisis, but more as a challenge. “We are looking ahead and considering what a smaller humanities sector, with fewer students, will look like in the future, and how it can be organised in the best way for both researchers and students,” he said.

He welcomed the new coalition’s plans to create 2,000 additional bachelor’s places in STEM disciplines, adding that he was pleased to see that Christina Egelund would remain minister for higher education and science.

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“The government also states that it will slow down the master’s degree reform. We do not yet know exactly what this will entail, but it appears that fewer students will be required to complete a shorter degree programme. We look forward to learning more about the proposal,” Langergaard added.

“We are somewhat surprised that international students are not mentioned in the government platform. However, we hope that this will still become a priority, and that we will have the opportunity to attract more international students to Denmark.”

Lasse Nielsen, senior economist at the higher education thinktank DEA, said that universities were still grappling with the consequences of the 2023 reforms. “In general, universities have been sceptical about these reforms,” he said.

“They don’t like limiting the number of undergraduates; they don’t see that as a good idea. It’s a reform that has been pressed upon them. For the master’s and graduate programmes, they have to change some of them from two [years] to one year. Some universities fear this will affect the quality of the programmes.”

He stressed that the decline in enrolment in humanities subjects followed a period of rapid expansion between 2008 and 2015, adding that the drop predates the 2023 reforms.

“Humanities enrolment is now around 20 per cent below levels seen in the early 1990s, with foreign language subjects accounting for much of the decline,” he said.

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“The new education minister is the same as the last one, and she has formerly taken an interest in [addressing the decline within foreign languages], but we haven’t seen anything yet from the new government on this,” he added.

seher.asaf@timeshighereducation.com