The cabinet’s ‘coalition programme’ has been published. The minister and state secretary of Education, Culture and Science have to make drastic cuts, they acknowledge in their own press release. ‘That is painful and makes it necessary to make sharp choices.’

The cutbacks of almost a billion euros affecting students, teachers and researchers had already been announced in the outline agreement concluded by coalition parties PVV, VVD, NSC and BBB.

One change was leaked earlier this week. The ministry has decided to leave the national sector plans of the universities alone after all. These are tied to 1,200 jobs and the universities were threatening to take the matter to court.

Instead, the cabinet is cutting the starter and incentive grants for scientists, which were intended to lighten the workload. Umbrella organisation Universities of the Netherlands scornfully refers to this as merely shifting the problem.

Internationalisation

The cabinet still wants to come down on migration, including student migration: ‘For every Dutch degree student going abroad, six international degree students come to the Netherlands.’ The members of the government say this is a problem due to student housing, the ‘overflowing lecture halls’ and the ‘high pressure on teachers’.

One of the measures is the reduction of ‘anglicisation’ in higher education. But some exceptions will remain, ‘for example in the natural sciences and technology’. ‘Regional circumstances’ also play a role. If fewer internationals make their way here, this will reportedly result in overall savings of 293 million euros.

Slow-progress penalty

About the slow-progress penalty, which is to bring in more than 280 million euros per year, the cabinet can’t say much yet. The idea is that students will pay three thousand euros extra in tuition fees if they take longer than one year extra to finish their Bachelor’s or Master’s degree.

But what are the exceptions? The cabinet wants to talk to higher education institutions and students about this. ‘This would involve a broad discussion of feasibility and of ways for institutions and students to prevent study delays.’

Open science

Other cutbacks: there’s less money for ‘large-scale scientific infrastructure’, i.e. instruments and facilities that universities would never be able to afford on their own but that are important for science in the Netherlands as a whole.

Funding of Regieorgaan Open Science NL will also be decreased. Open science is the movement to make the fruits of research, such as data and articles, accessible to everyone.

Research funding body NWO will also have to make cuts, the agreement shows. The cabinet hasn’t mentioned any figures for these areas. These may be announced on Tuesday, when the budget for next year will be presented. NWO is uneasy about the whole thing. ‘This causes us great concern’, reads an initial reaction.

Stable funding

While the cabinet is making drastic cuts, it also wants to make funding more stable: ‘For one thing, we are working towards types of capacity funding for higher education institutions’, it says in the programme.

This means funding will focus less on the number of students, making sure that programmes won’t have to make cuts right away if they’re shrinking. This can also help keep educational offerings in areas facing depopulation up to scratch. However, the plan still needs to be fleshed out further, as a new system like this comes with many snags and catches.

A few shifts of emphasis the cabinet is making could also be considered new. Vocational colleges and higher education institutions are getting a duty of care for social safety, so they can be held accountable more easily in case of problems.

Concession for unlucky students

The cabinet also wants an extra concession for the students belonging to the bad luck generation, who missed out on the basic student grant. About 1.4 billion euros has been earmarked for this.

This doesn’t placate the Dutch Student Union. ‘This coalition programme strikes a crushing blow to higher education in the Netherlands’, says chair Abdelkader Karbache. ‘The younger generations in our country will be ruined by the cutbacks this cabinet is planning to make. So there’s only one thing left: major protests!’