New cuts to higher education

On Good Friday, the cabinet released the Spring Memorandum, after the four governing parties had negotiated for more than 24 hours in a row. The outcome for education and research: new cuts.

For example, institutions will get less money to cope with inflation. This cut in the ‘wage and price adjustment’ applies to all ministries. But targeted cuts have also been announced.

25 million for science
Last December, PVV, VVD, NSC and BBB struck a deal with four opposition parties to ease the cuts. One of the agreements was that science would get four additional 25 million euros a year.

This science money is partly taken away by the cabinet from basic education: an improvement of the curriculum will be postponed. The rest of the money is like paying out of its own pocket. It comes from a pot (study advance funds) that was already earmarked for higher education but had not yet been allocated.

Ov-reimbursement abroad
The Spring Memorandum also contains an outright cut in higher education funding of EUR 59 million from 2030. This year it amounts to two million, next year to 24 million and so on.

This cut partly replaces another one. For Dutch students abroad, the government wanted to remove the ov-card fee. (Those studying across the border have no use for a Dutch ov-card and can instead get a monthly fee in their bank account.)

That cut will not go through because it turns out to be legally untenable. In other words, someone may sue and then there is a good chance that the government will have to uphold that allowance anyway. So that is a financial setback - and education has to bleed for that.

Improving cyber security (technically: implementing the NIS2 directive) will also be partly passed on to education. For other ministries, these costs were already known, but not yet for OCW.

Student numbers
Setbacks are more common in the Spring Memorandum, but sometimes they are actually good news. Hbo students graduate faster than expected, this Spring Memorandum states. That is nice for everyone, only their basic grant, supplementary grant and ov student card change into a gift sooner than anticipated. So the government has to ‘pay’ for them faster.

Another ‘setback’ for the treasury is the number of students in hbo: the contraction apparently does not hit as hard, as the expected student numbers have been revised upwards. In the long run, this will cost an extra €96.8 million.

The universities, on the other hand, can expect less money because the number of Dutch students in academic education turns out to be smaller than expected: it saves 40 million euros per year in the long run.

Student finance
In student grants, the ministry has a 94 million euro setback this year, for all kinds of reasons. But in the long run, there is actually a windfall of 36 million euros because fewer students apply for study financing and the supplementary grant is usually lower than estimated. Students also appear to travel less by public transport, making the ov student card cheaper.

Cuts are also being made in the rest of education. For instance, the ‘educational opportunities scheme’, under which schools in certain disadvantaged neighbourhoods receive more money, will disappear. This saves 177 million euros structurally.Furthermore, the funding of the mbo goes down: eventually by 21 million euro a year.

Comments
President Caspar van den Berg of universities association UNL called the new cuts ‘damaging to education and therefore damaging to the future of the Netherlands’.

Another ‘setback’ for the treasury is the number of students in hbo: the contraction apparently does not hit as hard, as the expected student numbers have been revised upwards.In the long run, this will cost an extra €96.8 million.

De Algemene Onderwijsbond is downright furious. Chairman Thijs Roovers compares the cuts to ‘stealing candy from a child’, as the government takes money away from the opportunities of vulnerable students in secondary education.