This fall, Pärnu College will be accepting nearly 300 new students. In all, the TÜ college received 838 applications for the 2024-2025 academic year.

"That's a bit more than last year," Pärnu College study director Tiina Viin told ERR, adding that overall, the number of applications was slightly higher across all majors than last year.

She noted that in her experience, interest in attending university goes up in challenging times.

"When the economy is unstable and conditions are more difficult, people start to increasingly value knowledge and education," Viin explained. "Then studying becomes more important."

Located on the Western Estonian coast, TÜ's Pärnu College offers a total of eight majors – four at the bachelor's level and four at the master's level.

"The most popular was the free master's program in service design and management, which was also one of the most competitive at the University of Tartu," the study director said, adding that it saw a ratio of six applicants per spot in the program.

Likewise very popular were the bachelor's degree programs in design thinking and digital marketing, social work and rehabilitation administration as well as entrepreneurship and project management.

Viin noted that fewer students than before are coming straight out of high school to study tourism and hotel management at Pärnu College. On the contrary, this major has begun attracting more interest from those already in the workforce.

Pärnu College has introduced several new programs in recent years as well.

"All of them are tuition-based programs," the study director said. "Two of them are master's programs: person-centered social innovation, and personal branding based entrepreneurship. And at the bachelor's level, we have design thinking and digital marketing. These have been quite interesting to students."

TÜ's Pärnu College has a student body of approximately 800.

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