Students won’t face late graduation fines as coalition parties bend on education budget

The four-party coalition has given a “final offer” to a broad alliance of opposition parties in a last-ditch effort to save its faltering education budget proposal. The proposal includes commitments to abandon plans to impose a fine of 3,000 euros per academic year on higher education students who need more time than intended to graduate, sources close to the talks have said.

Many students are relieved that the government seems to be withdrawing the fine for these students. “It hangs like a millstone around the necks of vulnerable students. But the real battle has not yet been won,” said National Student Union Chair Abdelkader Karbache.

Students and educational institutions have demonstrated against this on several occasions. The Intercity Student Consultation (ISO) also said it feels like a victory. They see the development as one in which “students can now go back to studying without fear of a fine.”

The right-wing coalition of the PVV, VVD, NSC, and BBB have a majority in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Parliament, but they have minority support in the Eerste Kamer, the Dutch Senate. To win backing for their education budget, a new proposal was submitted to an alliance of centrist and right-wing opposition parties, including D66, CDA, ChristenUnie, SGP, and JA21 on Wednesday afternoon, sources confirmed.

The proposal also will largely reverse the cutbacks to the community service program MDT, which allows people between 12 and 30 years of age to develop talent, meet people from outside their bubbles, and to carry out socially important projects. The alliance will probably discuss the proposal with the coalition parties again later on Wednesday.

CDA leader Henri Bontenbal has said that the offer is an improvement on the coalition’s first attempt, but he still sees “differences between our wishes and what they are offering.” VVD leader Dilan Yeşilgöz has said that this is the final offer, but according to the opposition parties that are involved there is still areas for negotiation. “I have witnessed a lot of negotiations in The Hague, and I know that it does not always work out that way,” said D66 leader Rob Jetten.

Jetten thinks it is "also an option" that there will be no deal on the education budget. The D66 leader said this before a meeting with the coalition parties and the “monster alliance” from the opposition that demands that education cuts be partially reversed or otherwise threatens to vote against the budget in the Senate. The coalition is making a new offer because the opposition parties do not agree with an earlier proposal.

D66 and CDA, together with the ChristenUnie, SGP, and JA21, will sit down with the coalition parties to discuss the education budget. This threatens to fail in the Senate unless things are adjusted.

The “monster alliance” from the opposition reacted negatively to the first offer that the coalition had made. This meant that only part (more than 360 million euros) of the 2 billion in planned cuts was reversed. The opposition parties themselves had proposed reversing 1.3 billion of the savings. It is not yet known what exactly the coalition's new bid will amount to.

It is expected that the agreements will be discussed further later on Wednesday. The opposition parties will first consult with their own factions and among themselves. The plan is for the Tweede Kamer to vote on the budgets on Thursday.

The fine for these students was not the only controversial proposal. While applied sciences universities are happy that the fine will likely be canceled, they also want the “draconian cutbacks and enormous task” to limit internationalization and foreign student levels to be taken off the table, said Maurice Limmen, who chairs the association representing these academic institutions.

The Cabinet wants research and applied sciences universities to admit and recruit fewer foreign students. One way they want to force this to happen is by reducing subsidies paid to institutions who do not take steps, like limiting English-language courses. These plans “still hang like the sword of Damocles” over the sector. The influx of foreign students is “stable and very limited,” he added.

According to Limmen, the English-language courses only exist because the labor market demands them, “Dutch has long been the norm.”