September the 5th, 2025 – Almost 500 international students are set to come and study in Croatia, further positioning the country on the educational map.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, in a time when Croatian higher education is being written about in negative terms, a story comes along that provides plenty of optimism and puts Croatian education in a completely new light. Almost 500 students from all over the world have chosen Zagreb and Croatia as their place of study. The Orientation Day at the Zagreb School of Economics and Management has just been held and it has shown how much interest there is in quality educational programmes that place Croatia alongside global centres of knowledge.

“We have students from Japan, China, all over Europe, Mexico and North America. This clearly shows that with persistent and long-term work and a focus on quality in higher education, a significant number of foreign students can be brought to Croatia. All of this is at the level of our institution. This is especially interesting in the context of the fact that 15,000 places have remained empty in the public higher education system. Who are these places actually intended for? This is a question that should be opened!”, pointed out ZSEM Dean Mato Njavro.

“Croatia can offer itself to foreign students. It isn’t easy, because you are competing with the whole world, but we have a story about being the only country that is completely safe, part of all of the important associations such as the European Union, and now Schengen. These are all benefits. Croatia is known from Japan to Korea, from China to Mexico,” Njavro added.

International accreditation is very important when it comes to international students choosing to come and study in Croatia. “Foreign students tend to look at whether the institution is accredited, whether the programmes are offered in English, whether the programmes follow global trends, and whether they can compete with other European programmes. In Croatia’s case, they can. That’s a great success, because we have managed to attract about 500 foreign students to Croatia annually. Some come as part of international exchange programmes and will stay for a year or a semester. The other part of them come as full-time foreign students and will study here for four years. Some will return home after that, and some may stay in Croatia and find a career here,” explained Njavro.

“I’m interested in studying economics. When I was in high school, I visited Britain for the first time and that’s when I fell completely in love with Europe. That’s why I wanted to study in one of the European countries and I ended up choosing Croatia. Croatia is a pleasant country and the people are very kind,” said new student Saki.

Paradoxically, Croatia can now easily import foreign workers with lower levels of education, literally overnight and in the tens of thousands. “At the same time, we encounter numerous obstacles when we want to attract foreign students who want to study, stay here and build a career that requires high expertise. As a country, we have to do a lot to attract these students more easily, from making it easier to obtain visas for students from third countries, outside the EU, to other measures,” said Dean Mato Njavro.

“I study business engineering at KU Leuven in Belgium and I’m doing my MBA in Zagreb. I have different courses from different fields, so it’s like a mixture of everything. I’d recommend this experience to others because, as the Dean says, it opens the mind. It allows you to meet all sorts of new people and new acquaintances, have new places to visit and garner an insight into how people live in other countries,” said Joran from Belgium.


 


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