TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan’s student population has fallen by 283,000 over five years due to declining birth rates, with most education levels reporting fewer students, according to the education ministry.
The number of students nationwide reached 3.92 million in the 2025 academic year, down 6.7% from 4.21 million in 2020, per Youth Daily News. High schools saw the largest decline at 12.7%, followed by universities and colleges at 12.2%.
Elementary schools had the largest student population at 1.16 million, followed by universities and colleges. University enrollment declined by 147,000 over the five years, dropping from 1.2 million students in 2020 to 1.05 million in 2025.
The decline in higher education was mainly seen in bachelor’s programs, which lost 140,000 students, Youth Daily reported. Graduate programs, including master’s and doctoral programs, saw a slight increase.
High school enrollment dropped to 532,000 students, down 77,000 from five years earlier, with declines seen across all programs. General education programs accounted for a larger share of enrollment, rising from 46.6% in 2020 to 51.7% in 2025, while vocational program enrollment fell from 40.1% to 37.4%.
Among university students, technology-related fields had the largest enrollment at 512,000 students, accounting for 48.4% of all students, per CNA. Social science fields accounted for 33.5%, while humanities fields had 18.1%.
Compared with 2020, technology fields lost 17,000 students, but their share of total university enrollment increased by 4.4%. Social science and humanities fields saw their shares decline by 2.9% and 1.5%, respectively.
The ministry said science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields accounted for 380,000 university students, CNA reported. Their share of total university enrollment increased to 35.9% from 31.8% five years earlier, while the number of STEM graduate students rose from 79,000 to 90,000.
