Headlines

Former students with jobs "hang on" to their student lodgings.And that, according to the National Union of Students (LSVb), isone of the most important reasons why there is such a shortage ofstudent accommodation. The Union has calculated that there are 6500students in Utrecht who are looking for somewhere to live. Theshortages are so bad it takes 27 months on a waiting list before anapplicant is eligible for an apartment, even in the new complex atCambridgelaan. SSH housing corporation aims to increase itsaccommodation stock by 1500 units, mainly in the form of newbuildings. A feasibility study is currently being carried out intothe building of three hundred new units at the Uithof

Student refugees

Increasing numbers of student refugees successfully completestudies in higher or further education in the Netherlands.According to the annual report of UAF, the foundation for studentrefugees, 205 graduated in 1999 from higher education institutesand universities. Ten years ago the total amounted to about sixty.More than 85 per cent of those who graduated last year have foundsuitable work. The UAF also says refugees complete their studies onaverage more quickly than Dutch students do. The dropout rate,however, is ten per cent higher. The main reason for this isthought to be the special problems that refugees face, such as careof their relatives who stayed behind, or uncertainties aboutresidence permits. Refugees relatively frequently study engineeringor medicine. Degrees of this kind offer the best perspectives intheir countries of origin, as well as a good deal of status.

University patents.

Dutch universities take out relatively few patents. This isshown by recent figures from the Agency for Industrial Property,which registers patents. Delft Technical University took outfifteen patents in 1999, Eindhoven University nine, UtrechtUniversity seven and Leiden University five, while the Universityof Twente, which calls itself the university of enterprise, tookout no more than three. These are low scores, certainly compared tolarge companies such as DSM (with 53 patents) or KPN (with 45).