Headlines

Last Monday In the Dom church, at the official opening of theacademic year, Prime Minister Wim Kok told his audience that theDutch may not be the biggest spenders when it comes to educationand research, but certainly score well internationally. In hisspeech, University Board Chairman Jan Veldhuis announced the startof a full-scale programme in Economics next year.

Internet

As from late September, Utrecht University students and staffwill be enabled to go on the Internet at home against local phonetariffs and without having to pay any subscription fees. UtrechtUniversity invests NFL 500,000 in the so-called Stol Project(Students On-line). The projects aims at enabling the students andstaff of the Dutch universities and polytechnics to consult theInternet -and consequently their institutions' networks- from theirhomes and at minimal costs.

Student Unions

The bigger student unions seem to recover from the grip in whichthey have been held for years by the minister of Education, andexpress contentment rather than concern about the number of newmembers. Joris Blankers, chairman of the National UnionsAssociation (Landelijke Kamer van Verenigingen LKvV), whichincludes all 'corpora', thinks that club life is regaining itsformer popularity. Probable causes: ministerial leniency as regardsthe rules and regulations of student loans, and more effective PRcampaigns by the unions themselves.

Easy Money

Get yourself a student loan and invest the money at the stockmarket. This is the way students can earn a 'nice sum of money'while still studying, according to College Cash, 'to buy a house,or start a business, for instance.' College Cash sees a goldenopportunity here: students can get a loan for six years, althoughmost of them do not because they get money from their parents or byworking. They would rather avoid getting into debt. College Cashalleges that that is not a smart way of thinking, as borrowing fromthe government is cheap: the interest rate is only 4.89 percent.Therefore, especially those students who do not actually need themoney should borrow and invest with College Cash which promises areturn of seven to nine percent.