Worldwide the development of critical thinking is an important aim in higher education. This is also the case for Belgium. Despite its importance, empirical data on students’ growth in critical thinking are mainly limited to the Anglo-Saxon countries. Data on the development in continental Europe are scarce. To gain insight in the situation in Belgium, a study was conducted among 808 first year bachelor students in ten different programmes of higher education. A critical thinking test constructed with items from both the Halpern Critical Thinking Test and the Cornell Critical Thinking test was administered twice: a first time at the beginning (November ‘10) and a second time at the end (May ‘11) of the academic year. First analyses reveal only a limited, non significant growth between both moments. Initially students in more professionally oriented programme scored lower than students in more academically oriented programmes. Those differences disappeared in May. There are no initial differences between the programmes. In the paper more detailed analyses are described and these results are discussed from a methodological , theoretical and practical perspective and suggestions for future research are made.