More students in Bulgaria are graduating with degrees in technical subjects, while fewer are finishing education and health courses, the National Statistical Institute said Tuesday, releasing its data on higher education for the 2025/2026 academic year. Almost 2,000 more students graduated than the year before.
The most popular fields stayed the same. Business and administration led with 23% of graduates, followed by education at 15.5%, health at 9.4%, technical sciences at 9% and social and behavioral sciences at 8.3%.
Technical sciences saw the biggest jump, up 0.7 percentage points on the year. Education's share fell by 1.3 percentage points, and health dropped by 0.8. Business and administration edged up slightly, while social sciences stayed flat.
Bulgarian citizens make up 180,000 of the students at universities and specialized colleges — 91.5% of the total. There are 16,800 foreign students, 646 more than a year earlier.
Most foreign students come from Greece, at 17% of all foreigners, followed by the UK at 13.6%, Ukraine at 12.4%, Germany at nearly 9% and Italy at around 6%.
Almost 60% of foreign students study something in health, and 46% of all foreign students are studying medicine. The share studying health dropped by 1.7 percentage points, while the share studying medicine rose by 0.3 percentage points.