Dutch universities are to offer a fixed number of places to study law, psychology and business economics from the 2013 academic year. The university association says this is necessary to maintain quality.

At the moment, students automatically get a place on the course of their choice, apart from in very popular subjects such as medicine and dentistry. Some universities have also introduced limits on particular courses.
It is not yet clear how students will be selected when the new restrictions are introduced. Currently, the brightest students are admitted to the course and 50% of places are allocated according to a lottery.
University association figures show 28,000 people are studying law and 39,000 economics. It is not clear how many of them are specialising in business economics.
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