Istanbul first choice for university students

ISTANBUL

In the 2024–2025 academic year, approximately 394,000 of the roughly 1.74 million students enrolled in Turkish higher education institutions have chosen Istanbul, highlighting the city's appeal as a vibrant center for education.

A total of 208 universities are actively operating across the country at present, with 79 of them being foundation universities and 129 corresponding to state universities. With a long history in education, Istanbul is home to 60 universities out of these institutions, emerging as the province with the greatest number of universities.

Every year, all of these universities in Istanbul welcome scores of university students to provide a wide-ranging education. This deep interest, without any doubt, stems from the rich cultural heritage, numerous national and international events and abundance of employment opportunities prevailing in the historic metropolis.

The day following the conquest of Istanbul, Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, widely known as Mehmed the Conqueror, issued an order to establish Istanbul University, the first one of these 60 universities.

In the following years, the province took bolder steps in terms of education, providing a basis for the establishment of several higher education institutions and evolving the metropolis into its former state in terms of education.

These Istanbul-based universities offer 29,294 distinct educational programs ranging from associate degrees to doctorates at present.

These programs enroll around 1.61 million individuals, including overseas students and those with special status as well as the ones who registered this year.

Currently, 1,029,991 students from different cities are studying in Istanbul for undergraduate and associate degree education, while this year, 191,549 students chose the city to pursue these programs.

The quota for a total of 222,135 students in associate and undergraduate programs at universities in Istanbul has currently reached a 91.1 percent occupancy rate.

New programs in the areas of digitalization, cyber security, big data and game design have also emerged as a result of the ongoing revolution of the epoch.

This academic year, newly established programs in Istanbul include 167 associate degrees, 308 bachelor's degrees, 362 master's degrees, and 101 doctoral degrees, providing students with instruction in various subjects.

Among the recently launched programs are associate's degrees in information security technology and nuclear medicine techniques, and undergraduate degrees in digital game design, anthropology, data science and analytics and cyber security engineering.