HE funding fears mount as calls to reverse cuts are rejected

The Dutch higher education community has condemned massive cuts to the sector’s budget and caps on international student numbers after the country’s ruling politicians rejected calls to rethink the government’s controversial structural reforms.

On 27 November, in a vote in the Dutch House of Representatives (Tweede Kamer), the Netherlands’ right-wing four-party coalition led by independent Prime Minister Dick Schoof supported a proposal spearheaded by Dutch Minister of Education, Culture and Science Eppo Bruins of the New Social Contract party to cut education funding by approximately €2 billion (US$2.1 billion) – half of which is earmarked for higher education – despite growing pressure from opposition parties who are threatening to block the plans in the Dutch Senate (Eerste Kamer) .

In May this year, the Dutch government announced plans to slash €1 billion from the higher education budget, including a €300 million (US$317 million) reduction in its international education budget, which funds Nuffic, the national organisation responsible for supporting international students.

The remainder of the cuts, approximately €1 billion, will affect primary, secondary and intermediate vocational education.

International student numbers

The slash in Nuffic funding runs parallel to the government’s proposed legislation, the Balanced Internationalisation bill, which seeks to limit the number of international students in the country and reduce overcrowding in universities and colleges while ensuring access to higher education for Dutch students.

The proposals specifically include plans to restrict English-taught courses in Dutch universities, the large number of which the Dutch minister of education, culture and science has said is putting “the Dutch language under pressure”.

The proposals also aim to limit funding for European Union (EU) students.

“The total budget cut [proposed] by the new government on higher education and research is approximately €1 billion on a structural basis.

“In addition, [the government] plans to reduce the innovation budget, specifically the National Growth Fund, by €6.8 billion in total,” said Ruben Puylaert, a spokesperson for the organisation Universities of the Netherlands (Universiteiten van Nederland – UNL), which represents the shared interests of the 14 research universities in the Netherlands, to University World News.

Mass protest

“These cuts to education and research are the largest we have faced this century. For most universities, this will mean a loss of around 10% of their budget,” the UNL spokesperson added.

Public demonstrations of opposition to the proposed measures have been mounting as the Dutch government moves to make a final decision on the budget before the end of this year.

A national Dutch newspaper reported that, in the week that Dutch politicians gathered to debate the budget, a 25 November protest against the higher education cuts and structural reforms in The Hague attracted an estimated 20,000 participants, including students, staff, and educators from universities and colleges across The Netherlands.

A spokesperson for Bruins told University World News that cuts to higher education funding were needed for the government to finance other domestic priorities, such as defence.

“In order to maintain healthy public finances, this government [must] make difficult but necessary choices. We choose to invest in security and healthcare and ensure that people can make ends meet every month. To make that possible, cutbacks are also needed in some areas, including higher education,” the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson added that the government had chosen the cuts “wisely, so that we preserve the quality of higher education, keep the basics in order, and continue to work towards a future-proof academic system”.

Bruins’ office said that while the frustration of students and staff at the proposals is “understandable”, there are no plans to reverse the government’s plans. “But I do promise to fully commit to maintaining a high-quality education and research system,” the spokesperson added on behalf of Bruins.

The Dutch government is also under orders from the EU to be more frugal with its public spending as it must comply with European regulations that stipulate EU member states must not exceed a budget deficit of 3% of GDP.

Ideological motives

Academics who are opposed to the measures said that the Dutch education ministry has failed to satisfactorily explain why higher education has been singled out for cutbacks.

“This is, perhaps, the most interesting question that remains unanswered for everyone,” Yarin Eski, an associate professor at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, told University World News.

“When the minister of Education, Culture and Science is asked to justify the cuts, he keeps on pointing out it's because we need to make savings due to a lack of financial resources available.

“In my opinion, I think the cuts on higher education are ... predominantly radical right-wing … and revanchist,” Eski said. He believed the funding reduction to be “ideological” and motivated by “resentment against the academic and wider higher education community”.

Eski predicted that social science programmes would be hit hardest by the cuts, due to what he said was the right-wing government's “suspicion of disciplines that teach and study racism, colonialism, and gender politics”.

He said that in addition to the Netherlands’ traditional academic universities, its applied universities, which focus on practical education, also stand to suffer.

Eski noted that it was important that the Dutch business community join the academic sector to oppose the measures, as they also fear a “brain drain” of future talent if the cuts are eventually implemented.

Indeed, last October, 24 major companies and 15 start-ups with operations in The Netherlands, including engineering giant Siemens, global consumer products manufacturer Johnson & Johnson and aircraft maker Airbus, sent an open letter to the cabinet, expressing grave concerns over proposed budget cuts in education, research, and innovation.

Impact on applied sciences institutions

A spokesperson for the Hague-based Dutch Association of Universities of Applied Sciences (Vereniging Hogescholen) said the association was aware of the motivations put forward by the government for the budget cuts, including pressure from Brussels to get control of the Netherlands’ deficit.

Nevertheless, the association, which represents 36 applied sciences universities across the country, expressed concern about the detrimental impact these planned measures would have on applied science education.

“We fear that cuts will lead to the closure of courses, the closure of research projects, and a huge reduction in the range of education [programmes] on offer. This is putting the accessibility of education under pressure,” the spokesperson told University World News.

The Vereniging Hogescholen spokesperson added that the association is deeply concerned about the government's plans to establish a “long-term study fine” – the so-called Langstudeerboete – which will impose a EUR3,000 fine on any student who has delayed their studies by more than a year, to be paid on top of the EUR2,530 statutory tuition fee in the 2026-2027 academic year.

While this fine would also apply to students at traditional universities, applied science students would suffer the most, as they tend to take longer to complete their studies, the spokesperson explained.

“The universities of applied sciences have many first-generation students and also students with a vulnerable background – such as caregivers, [students from] low-income families and chronically ill [students]. They are discouraged from studying if they risk receiving a long-term study fine, and thus the accessibility of education is compromised,” the spokesperson added.

Elaborating on the plight of applied science universities, Irene van Houten, a spokesperson for the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen or KNAW) said a series of announcements this year regarding funding cuts for the Dutch Research Council (Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek or NWO, which administers a major Dutch Research and Development Fund that has reportedly already seen hundreds of millions slashed from its budget in recent years, will have a major impact on practical higher education.

These cuts include plans to scrap PhD grants for teachers and to reduce funding for scientific infrastructure and open science, a movement to share and reuse scientific information as early as possible.

According to Van Houten, by cutting the numbers of international students, universities will lose revenue, and this will have a direct impact on young researchers whose grants to enter research programmes will disappear.

Concern for humanities

Van Houten added that the outlook was also worrying for humanities subjects, with many universities, including Utrecht University, Leiden University and Amsterdam University, scrambling to come up with plans to address the drastic cuts and redesign their programmes to save money.

Vrije Universiteit's Eski said he thought some academic centres in more remote areas in the Netherlands would suffer more from the proposed cuts than others.

“[Higher education providers in the] south of our country, in Maastricht, to the very north, in Groningen, and from the east, in Enschede, for example, to the west in Zeeland … they will likely be more affected because they have a relatively larger international student population, for example, from Germany.”

Eski also said that many local economies rely on universities and colleges for the spending power of their student populations, meaning there will be knock-on economic impacts from the cuts.

Academics and students are closely watching to see whether these controversial measures will eventually be passed by the Eerste Kamer, and when they might come into force. If approved by year's end, some measures could come into force as early as 2025, as per the country's latest national budget plans presented in September.

The KNAW spokesperson told University World News that while the Dutch parliament is due to vote on the budget of all government departments on 5 December 2024, an agreement on the higher education budget may be reached sooner.

However, the spokesperson also said that because the ruling coalition does not have a majority in the Dutch Senate, it is not certain whether all of the proposed measures will be approved, especially due to the strong resistance coming from opposition parties.

At present, there is no news of upcoming public marches against the cuts. However, the UNL spokesperson said there could be more protests in the future.

“Our shoes are just dry from the protest last Monday in The Hague. We are now closely following the discussion (...) and will certainly be heard from again,” the spokesperson affirmed.