(Bloomberg) -- The Dutch government is looking into measures to limit the number of international students who come to the Netherlands as the country’s universities run out of space.

“It should be possible to control the flow of students where necessary,” Robbert Dijkgraaf, Minister of Education, Culture and Science, said Friday in a statement. “If unrestrained, it leads, among other things, to overcrowded lecture halls, high teacher workload and lack of accommodations, and puts pressure on the accessibility of education.”

The number of international students in Dutch higher education has risen sharply over the past years. The Netherlands hosted 115,000 students last year, up from fewer than a third of that figure seven years ago. About 40% of new students at Dutch universities are currently international students.

As a possible measure, the minister said he would consider implementing an “emergency capacity limit” prohibiting the inflow of students from outside the European Union. Dijkgraaf said he expects to provide an update on his plans in a few months.

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