Maastricht University (officially abbreviated: UM) is a public university in Maastricht, the Netherlands. Founded in 1976, the university is the second youngest of the 13 Dutch universities.
In 2013, nearly 16,000 students studied at Maastricht University, 47% of whom were foreign students, with over 3,200 employees employed. About half of the bachelor's programmes are fully offered in English, while the other half is taught wholly or partly in Dutch. Most of the master's and doctoral programmes are in English. In 2013, Maastricht University was the second Dutch university to be rewarded the ‘Distinctive Quality Feature for Internationalisation’ by the Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders (NVAO).
Besides traditional programmes, Maastricht University also has an honours liberal arts college: University College Maastricht and a Maastricht Science Programme in the same liberal arts tradition. Its University College Venlo has been announced to open in September 2014.