Will there be any firm national agreements regarding international students?

Less than a year ago, the previous cabinet waged a fierce battle against the influx of international students. The then Minister for Education, Eppo Bruins, wanted higher education institutions to offer fewer English-taught programmes. His ministry also made substantial budget cuts.

But Dutch politics is fickle. At the beginning of the year, D66, VVD and CDA presented a coalition agreement in which they committed to ease the restrictions. The present coalition aims to reverse the budget cuts and is no longer concerned about English-taught programmes.

International talent is welcome in some cases
However, this does not mean that everything will go back to the way it was. After all, the government still wants to manage the influx of international students. They intend to do so not through rules or funding cuts, but rather through administrative agreements with educational institutions, wrote the Minister of Education, Rianne Letschert, in a letter to the House of Representatives a few weeks ago.

The idea is to give higher education institutions 154 million euros to devise a "talent strategy" to attract foreign students to fields the Netherlands needs to grow. The government does not give examples of any such field, but one might think of technical programmes, for example. According to this proposal, more international students in one sector would mean fewer in another.

At a University Council committee meeting held early last week, UU President Hans Brug announced a position paper from the Association of Dutch Universities, UNL. In the document, universities set out their vision for the further development of this new strategy.

Self-regulation toned down
The idea of regulating intake through administrative agreements did not come out of the blue. Universities and universities of applied sciences strongly opposed the previous government’s plans, as they found that strict rules for English-taught education would generate uncertainty. They argued that institutions could address the problem themselves if something really needed to be done. 

They put forward a proposal for "self-regulation" in which they agreed to manage student intake amongst themselves. They felt this had to be done in a nuanced and well-considered manner.

The question is what will actually come of it. When they presented their plans two years ago, both universities and universities of applied sciences sounded very firm about their intention to "equalise" internationalisation. However, with the arrival of a "friendlier" government, the institutions immediately toned down that self-regulation.

Not switching to Dutch
UNL initially promised to switch English-taught programmes in Psychology, Economics and Business Administration to Dutch, but dropped those plans on the same day the coalition announced that the language test was being scrapped.

In Utrecht, the Executive Board reversed the decision to close the English-taught track of its Economics programme. The initial plans to switch the programme to Dutch were a bitter pill to swallow for the economists, who were sidelined in the decision.

As for universities of applied sciences, they have not published any news on the matter, but insiders say they are also scrapping a significant portion of their self-governance plan. For instance, universities of applied sciences promised to decide jointly on which English-taught programmes to allow. They had even set up a brand new consultation structure for this purpose. But that is no longer going ahead.

Maximum intake
So, what will Minister Letschert agree on? What remains in place for the time being – at least on paper – is the self-imposed limit on the number of international undergraduate students at universities. Two years ago, they promised not to admit more than 16,766 students annually. A spokesperson for the UNL now confirms that this limit remains in principle. That's 11 percent below the peak of 18,700 international undergraduate students in 2022.

The figure of 16,766 sounds remarkably precise, accurate to the last student, yet it is certainly not set in stone. The thirteen universities of the Netherlands all have their own targets, says UN, but the organisation does not wish to make those figures public. Therefore, individual institutions can't be held accountable for anything.

Moreover, no agreements have been made regarding the intake of Master’s students. If the number of Bachelor’s students drops, this may affect Master’s programmes, although it is not certain. So far, the intake of Master’s students has been rising every year.

Fewer applications at UU
Due to the commotion surrounding the scrapping of the English-taught track in Economics, UU had already announced the maximum number of first-year students it had committed to: 658. At Monday’s committee meeting, councillors asked how the university intends to honour that commitment now that the English-taught track will remain in place.

Hans Brug said he did not expect any problems, saying there may be an intake cap for the English-taught Economics programme. According to him, discussions at the national level are still ongoing. Besides, the number of pre-applications from international students remains significantly lower than in previous years. “It seems that there is little we can do about that,” said the UU President.

Earlier this month, Utrecht University announced that it would step up its efforts to recruit international Master’s students. On Tuesday, Brug told the council members that, as far as he is concerned, there could well be a greater influx of international students for Utrecht’s Bachelor’s programmes. Compared with other cities, Utrecht has always attracted relatively few international students. “I find it worrying that even fewer are coming now than is permitted.”

Restrictions per programme
Universities have indeed been given greater scope to manage international student intake, but this has little to do with budget cuts or populist politics. They had been asking for this themselves for years.

Seventeen English-taught bachelor’s programmes now have a numerus fixus for the non-native language (i.e. English-taught) track. The idea is that they can then specifically limit the intake of international students without compromising access for Dutch students. In the past, it was ‘all or nothing’. An intake cap was always applied to the entire programme, meaning Dutch students had to compete for places with students from all over the world.

But does this really act as a restriction? The seventeen programmes with a track-specific intake cap together already admit nearly eight thousand students (not just international students), but there are still countless English-taught programmes without an intake cap. These cannot limit the influx of international students at all: anyone with the right qualifications can apply.

It will therefore become quite complicated for universities to meet their own targets. UNL will not hold them to account for this, says the spokesperson. If they admit too many students one year, they will do their best to keep numbers slightly lower the following year.

Funding 
The question is what role the minister will play in this. That will have to become clear from the new administrative agreements. Without the national ‘language test’ for English-taught bachelor’s programmes, she has few means of enforcement.

However, just as former Minister Bruins did, she can turn off the funding tap if institutions fail to honour their agreements. She can say: you will receive this amount and not a penny more. If the institutions exceed it anyway, they will have to bear the costs themselves.

In the long term, the government could level the playing field with a new funding model. The government wants to make higher education funding "more stable", in other words, less dependent on student numbers. This would mean institutions would also make less "profit" from international students.

But that is a long way off. We may be three or four governments down the line before a bill is tabled. Letschert can only make agreements and hope that her successor respects them.