The 2023-24 academic year saw further modest growth in the number of international students studying in Poland, and continued investment in Poland’s PBSA sector.
Higher Education in Poland
The latest data from Statistics Poland shows that in the 2023-24 academic year, there were 354 higher education institutions operating in Poland. As of 31 December 2023, there were 1,245,200 students enrolled in Polish higher education institutions, an increase of 21,500 from the previous year. Sixty-four per cent (64%) of these are studying full-time.
However, the number of students studying in higher education in Poland today is significantly less than in 2015-16, when there were 1.4 million, a decline attributed to the shrinking student-age population. In 2019-20, enrolment numbers reached a low of 1.2 million but have since slowly started to increase.
International Students
The growth in higher education numbers has been partly driven by steady increases in the number of international students studying in Poland. In 2023-24, international students accounted for 8.6% of the total student population, with numbers increasing to 107,100, an increase of 1.6% from the previous year. The largest sending markets are:
• Ukraine (46,200) – 43.1% of all international students
• Belarus (12,700 – 11.8% of all international students
• Türkiye (4,800) – 4.4% of all international students.
• Zimbabwe (4,157) – 3.8% of all international students.
While the large number of Ukrainian students studying in Poland is partly attributed to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, which prompted many students to seek opportunities to study abroad, students from Ukraine have long been a key sending market for Poland. However, in 2023-24, the number of Ukrainian students decreased slightly from 2022-23, when there were 48,100 students from Ukraine studying in Poland. At the same time, the number of Turkish students studying in Poland increased from 3,800 in 2022-23 to 4,800 in 2023-24.
The rise in international student numbers in Poland over the past two decades is a significant achievement given that there were only 8,800 international students studying in Poland in 2004 when Poland joined the European Union.
International students are attracted by cheaper tuition fees and costs of living compared to other destinations. Poland also has a growing number of programmes taught in English – in 2023-24, Polish universities offered 903 programmes conducted in English.
Policy environment
Poland is currently developing an internationalisation strategy to 2035 – this is expected to be completed in 2025. Efforts include aligning accreditation procedures with European standards and addressing demographic challenges in the sector.
In April 2025, the Polish government passed an act tightening the student visa system, introducing measures such as a limit of 50% international students at any given university and requirements around proof of language proficiency and proof of commencement of studies.
Purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) sector
The PBSA sector in Poland is drawing increasing interest from both local and international investors. Savills analysis notes that only one in ten students in Poland can find a place on a dormitory and that:
“In Poland, the majority of student accommodation is owned by public higher education institutions. In the 2023/24 academic year, there were 418 student houses offering 112,414 beds, while private HEIs provided 2,775 beds across 25 dormitories. Private investors add another 15,690 beds to the overall supply, of which 13,195 beds are distributed across 33 modern PBSA projects, which offer higher standard and more available beds – approximately 400 on average per project. The remaining 43 student residences offer only 2,495 beds (58 beds on average each) and are of lower standard.”
Savills notes that a lot of existing supply is old and poorly maintained, with rooms often shared by two or three students and shared bathrooms and kitchens. However, there is a “promising” pipeline:
“the supply of beds in Poland will grow by nearly 9,000 by 2028. Approximately 4,100 beds are currently under construction across 10 projects, which accounts for more than half of the total pipeline. Four of them are located in Warsaw, three in Kraków, and one each in Gdańsk, Poznań and Olsztyn. 88% of the projects under construction are planned to open in late Q3 2025.”
