Dutch Higher Education at a Crossroads with Marijk van der Wende

Alex Usher: Hi everyone. I’m Alex Usher and this is The World of Higher Education Podcast.
A few months ago, there was an election in the Netherlands, one in which the most seats went to was the anti-immigration Party for Freedom, or PVV led by Geert Wilders. After a few months of coalition negotiations between parties (something that is largely unknown in the anglosphere but is pretty common in Europe), a new governing majority was created that collectively agreed to a new set of priorities. One of those priorities? Cutting the living daylights out of funding to higher education, on the order of a billion euros, or roughly equivalent to one universities of spending.
Now, it’s not as though higher education in the Netherlands has been a gravy train these past few years. For most of the decade and a half since 2008 per-student funding to research universities and universities of applied sciences. And while a recent government initiative promised to put hundreds of millions of euros back into universities’ pocket, the decision last year to force institutions to reduce their intake of international students – a reaction to skyrocketing housing prices – certainly put a hole in many institutions budget. In any event, this very familiar-sounding (to some Canadians, anyway) one-two punch of lower international student numbers plus a massive cut in government funding, has put the fear of God into Dutch universities, who have responded with threat of protest marches and lawsuits to try and forestall the changes.
Joining me on the show today to discuss all of this is Marijk van der Wende. She is the Distinguished Faculty Professor of Higher Education at Utrecht University’s Faculty of Law, Economics and Governance, formerly President of the OECD’s programme on Institutional Management in Higher Education (IMHE) and also the Founding Dean of Amsterdam University College. She generously agreed not only to give us not just a read on how the situation was affecting institutions (hint: differentially, based on status and geography), but also a basic lesson in Dutch civics. Her take essentially is that things are going to be bad: there isn’t a lot that institutions will realistically be able to do to cushion the coming cut to income. But perhaps her more interesting speculation came when she questioned whether the crisis was truly a national one or a continental one. Her view was that a European Union confronted with wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and tensions in the South China Sea while at the same time dealing with potential EU expansion in the Balkans and Eastern Europe might collectively shatter the already-fragile consensus on free movement within Europe, which would have enormous effects on higher education from one end of the continent to the other.
But enough from me, let’s hear from Marijk.
Alex Usher (AU): Marijk, thanks for joining us. We're talking about the higher education policies of a new government in the Netherlands. Now pretty much all Dutch governments are coalitions and the negotiations for coalitions can take quite a long time. Could you walk us through how governments in the Netherlands are formed and how the horse trading takes place about budgets?
Marijk van der Wende (MvdW): Thanks, thanks Alex. Good seeing you. Well, let's take that as an easy question, which it is not, but let me try. The Netherlands has a multi party political landscape. And for the last elections, November last year, there were 26 parties allowed to participate. So, 26 parties on the ballot. This is not an all time high, that in 2020 when we had 37 on the ballot.
On the ballot means those parties that met the formal criteria to be on it, And this time 15 made it eventually into parliament. This is because the Netherlands doesn't have what is called an electoral threshold, like for instance, Germany, although you need some 70, 000 votes to have one seat in parliament.
Anyway, forming a government then starts after election results are official and are led by the winning party. The party with the most votes. The process is formally coordinated by parliament. It's relatively recent. Formerly was it by the king. In this case, the 2023 elections, it was the Party for Freedom, PVV, a right wing populist party, which won for the first time. It won 37 seats, which is around 25 percent of the total number of seats in parliament, 150. It took seven months, which is not excessive in this country, to form a four party government, led by this PVV together with the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, VVD, the New Social Contract, and the Farmers Party, BBB. The latter two are new parties that have never ever been in government before. Together these four have a large majority in parliament, 88 out of the 150 seats, but no majority in senate.
And last thing, the coalition, this coalition is led by a so called neutral prime minister, a non elected government official, actually the former chief of the security services, who they found willing to lead. And this is because all four party leaders decided to stay in parliament, which is the idea of an extra parliamentary cabinet. So we're in a very awkward situation.
AU: So you mentioned that the PVV, which is the far right party, you know, led the coalition. It's part of the government, it's the main party in the government. What caused the far right to do so well in the last election and how did that affect the process of government formation? Was it the fact that it was a new party in government that made them go this extra parliamentary route for the prime minister?
MvdW: Yeah. Well, first of all, the idea of a far right party winning has to be put in, in, I would say, European perspective. In the Netherlands, as I said, they want 25 percent of seats not so much more than before. It's rather that all other parties shrunk, right? And if we add the other far right party, Freedom for Democracy, it's still around 26%, so it's still far from a majority.
And the European Parliament elections, that was the same pattern. Everybody feared that far right populist parties would win or take over, but not quite, and not as much as feared. They all together also make up some 26%. Moreover, they're scattered across various European Parliament families and not working so well together. So you could say, actually, or you should say, that the centre should hold, because by far most votes are to be found there.
So why then, your question, did this happen in the Netherlands? Well, I think the winning party PVV was primarily helped a lot by the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, the VVD, a center right party, which was led for 14 years by Mark Rutte, VVD leader, the longest serving prime minister, but let its fourth cabinet fall over immigration and its new leader then opened the door to collaborate with this PVV, Populist Party, and immigration became the ticket for both. So, And that's what we see in various European countries. Immigration is a very strong card to play for these kind of right wing populist parties. And, well, as you know, often in combination with other long term issues, inequality, housing, environmental, and then, as often, immigrants become the scapegoat for all problems.
In this round, if I may add a little bit to the immigration, because then I get to the international students. In this round in the Netherlands, the accident happened. International students, then all of the sudden called study immigrants, were counted in the total numbers. This is what happened in the UK preceding Brexit. It happened in Denmark. And then we need to realize that the large majority of our international students come from within the EU. The largest number is 25, 000 German students and they have been coming for more than a decade. So we have, if they would be all together, a mid sized university for German students, a neighboring country with a comparable GDP, good and free higher education, and here they have to pay some 2500 euros like the Dutch, roughly 25 percent of full costs and the other 75 percent for the public purse. So I warned in a speech and in writing in 2018 that this would not be sustainable, not acceptable for taxpayers in the long run.
AU: Interesting. Well, let's talk about what was happening to higher education before this election, because for many years you know, I was tracking Dutch government expenditures for a long time and it seemed like from about 2011, 2012 onwards, it was a fairly constant decline, but the last Rutte government actually did promise quite a bit of money to universities. What did it promise exactly and how were these moves received by universities?
MvdW: Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, the inquiry the budget didn't always catch up with the increase in student numbers in particular. So the previous government, which fell after two years which included the liberal Democrats, they reinvested substantially, especially in R& D. And mostly, I think, to compensate for the acclaimed imbalance in teaching and research. It added up to a total of around 1 billion euros across various national funds and also directly into rolling grants for junior faculty. And 1 billion is then on a total higher education budget of around 11 billion. So obviously universities were quite excited. And they felt that this money was needed to catch up and restore the teaching load research time imbalance.
But I would, I would like to add that in the back of that, we cannot ignore that fact that the research university student numbers had increased substantially. We now have various top 100 universities, global top 100 universities with over 40, 000 students, closer to 50, 000 even in the case of Amsterdam. And that, the rise was due to international students, first reason. That number doubled in research universities over the last decade, mounting to at some point 40 percent of freshmen in research universities coming from abroad. Again, predominantly EU, so you, you imagine the headlines in the media, right? Especially to housing shortages and our classrooms, et cetera.
The other trend is that more and more high school graduates prefer to enroll in a research university rather than in a university of applied science or to continue after an applied science bachelor in a research master. So, no wonder that teaching loads in research universities increased. But the question is, and I know you're interested in those questions, the question is whether that should be compensated by more research money, assuming that all extra teaching faculty should also do research, or that student admission should be better regulated. Taking into account, of course, that the EU and Dutch students should be treated equally. And that's my open systems work.
AU: Well, let's get back to what the current government is doing. So in the middle of those negotiations that we talked about you know, one of the outcomes was not just a reversal of the previous government's commitment to raise investment in universities, but also an additional cut to research dollars. Why did they do this? Was it a fiscal conservative issue? Like let's save money. Or was it a cultural conservative let's punish the wokes kind of move? Because we've seen both of those in Europe and North America in the last decade.
MvdW: I wasn't in a room.
AU: Ha ha.
MvdW: But, my guess is that at least the story I just told didn't help because I think both the government and the research universities missed out on this admission and regulated admission problem. The universities asked for more and better tools to select students, but the proposed regulation was controversial and then delayed by the former minister. And meanwhile, the universities did not use the available tools to the full. They continued to compete on student numbers, while knowing that game was not so smart to play. So, the populists could grasp headline after headline, well, on these housing shortages and language issues for their win. So I think that didn't help.
And, does part of the anticipated cuts now are expected to emerge from a lower number of international students who will be discouraged by new legislation forcing Universities to return to teaching in Dutch instead of English. And as for the cutback on the extra research funds that had just been launched, many do see this, perceive this as a clawback based on political resentment, indeed. And apart from higher education, also the cultural sector is faced with substantial budget cuts. So the least we can say that this government does not have strong affection for education and culture, and perhaps the pro Gaza student demonstrations and occupations didn't help either.
AU: We're going to take a short break. We'll be right back.
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AU: And we're back. So Marijk, you mentioned the issue of housing prices. And again, that's something we're seeing in lots of countries around the world, Ireland, Australia, Canada. Even before this new government came in there was some moves by the previous government to try and limit international students. And one of the. measures that was perhaps the most consequential, I guess, was the idea that universities would be limited in their ability to teach in English, at least at the undergraduate level. And that's a big deal because you've got one whole university, Maastricht if I'm not mistaken, Maastricht University was teaching largely in English by the mid 2010s. What kind of effect did that have on institutional finances? Were some institutions like Maastricht, more affected than others. Who came out on top with that move, if anyone?
MvdW: Well, it, there is not so much in effect as yet because the legislation hasn't been implemented yet. It has been announced and in a kind of soft law way, the government or the former minister, suggested, agreed with universities that they would recruit, you know, the recruitment efforts would be a bit milder. So international student flows only decreased just by a tiny bit so far. But bigger impact is expected when the new legislation will take effect. And we don't know exactly when, and indeed it will work out quite differently across sectors and regions. And what we can see now, it will be sparing STEM, science, technology, engineering, math, and regions that rely on highly skilled workers.
So a well known example where this comes together is BrainPort Eindhoven, where the ASML company, the big machine maker for semiconductors needs so many scientists and engineers that the TU Technical University of Eindhoven has to double in size. And basically all technical universities will benefit from these developments. Delft also plans to grow substantially.
A negative impact I would expect in social sciences in particular, for instance, psychology, where stay rates of international students are quite low. And yes, this will affect some universities. You mentioned Maastricht, but I would also imagine Amsterdam more than others.
And please note, I think you said that the new legislation would not affect master's or PhD graduate programs. And the most programs, I think over two thirds of master's is taught in English. And over 50 percent of our PhD students are international. It would only affect undergraduates. So in a way, you could also say that it could affect the shape of universities, the proportion of undergraduate to graduate in a positive way, depending on your strategy. And in any case, I would say it's more attractive to be Europe's graduate school than Europe's polytechnic. Catering for the needs of high tech industries is graduate level business and more about public and corporate support than about student fees. That's different from, for instance, Australia and perhaps Canada. And finally, mind you, switching to Dutch is not all that obvious. It's over 40 percent of university faculty is international.
AU: Yeah. And of course the, those two things would've gone in hand. So the new government, I think you've implied is more immigration skeptic than the previous one. Do you think there are further policy changes in the works that might affect international students? Is this just step one? Are there more surprises to come?
MvdW: To be honest, I hold my breath. As we speak the Dutch government is trying to file crisis law. That means overhauling both Parliament and Senate on immigration on a proclaimed asylum crisis. France and Germany, again, we need an European perspective here. France and Germany are enhancing border controls.
I mean, the question I think is, where's the EU going? Because keep in mind that the large majority of international students is from within the EU, and study in another member state is an EU citizen's right that cannot be taken away without changing the EU treaty. So again, We need to come to grips with open systems and we cannot continue to steer an open system with outdated closed system legislation. Changing language of instruction is a poor, second rated tool to interfere with easily nationalistic connotations. I think the Dutch universities need to get in control of their size. Also for quality reasons, yes, balancing costs access and quality, indeed. But within an open system, and thus treating all EU students, including the Dutch, equally in, let me say, applying the same admission criteria.
AU: Hmm, that would be a big step. When universities can't get money from government and they can't get money from international students. They sometimes have recourse to increasing domestic student fees. Is this likely to happen in the Netherlands? Do universities have that option to try and balance their budgets?
MvdW: They're not autonomous in this respect. They can only determine themselves the fees for non EU students, which are usually already full cost. There are no signs in this direction, as we're early in this this new situation, but perhaps in the long run, it's not to be taken for granted that master degrees are fully financed by public money for EU students. I mean, we take it for granted but it is not in all systems as you know.
AU: Interesting. So that leaves cost cutting within universities as a means to balance budget. But about a decade ago, the Netherlands went through a very peculiar wave of student protests against managerialism. Right? And, you know, the ability of central authorities and universities to make the kind of cuts that you would need to you know, deal with in this situation. To what extent does this attitude limit the options for today's university managers?
MvdW: Well, first of all, on the format, the universities can, of course, generate more income on the teaching side by including more lifelong learners, for instance, at postgraduate uh, private courses, et cetera, and they do, and they will, they will work harder on that side. But then this question, well, before summer, already some early protests arose, and that was interesting to see student and unions and university leaders together protesting against the government plans. Just a bit later, the former groups, so the students and unions turned against the university leaders, blaming them to accept the government cuts. Again, we're early in the process. The government's overall budget has been discussed, but the higher education budget will be discussed later this month, but already more and disruptive demonstrations and strikes are being announced for the fall, led by WOinActie activist faculty group from across all universities. Students, I'm sure, will join, but are also planning their own protests. So, It will become quite complex, messy,
AU: But just because those groups are on side against the government doesn't mean they're going to agree on adjustment measures within institutions. I mean, how, how difficult could this get for university managers? If labour unions and students don't they don't accept cuts from government, but they don't accept cuts from universities either.
MvdW: Yeah cost reduction, as you said, that's the first step. And well, you know, it's gonna be tough. My chair is in higher education systems. So the way I analyze it is as a system shock Because we go from very large amount of extra funds only two years ago to a large cut and structural reductions in a very short period. So you could say a system shock or a system stress test. In any case, it comes down to system resilience. How will the system reset after this? My prediction is that the higher education landscape in the Netherlands will come out different than before. I would suspect irreversibly different because coalitions, alliances will play out. We have a few strong ones. between strong institutions. And in any case, strong universities with, for instance, medical schools and engineering, or both, having more cards to play than smaller ones, or ones with only social science and humanities, all that will matter. Regions will matter, also in terms of political lobby and economic support.
So, so how will this play out? Yeah, some may become even stronger, or weaker indeed. I would be the most worried about the universities of applied sciences, because they're already in decrease. But we have to take into account that for long, also under the former minister, no system steering from above happened. A ministry with no capacity to adequately adjust legislation. So all relies in a way on self steering in the system. And that mostly happens within the university system and the University of Applied Sciences aside, but not. I would say a very strong joint effort there. And of course, the question is how long this government will last at all. But even then, if it falls, confidence between the sector and the government is hampered. That will need to be rebuilt. It takes time. Probably confidence hampered within this sector as well.
And if you allow me in the end to say that I insist that this has to be seen in an EU context. Where is the EU going? I mean, I know it's not among your questions, but it's in my mind. I mean, we have a war on the east front with Ukraine, Russia. A war in the Middle East, not so far from here. The European higher education area is shrinking. It lost Russia and other countries. The European research area, Israel, where is it going?
At the same time, we have a possible extension of the EU with Ukraine and another few accession countries, you know, bringing potentially more than 60 million EU citizens in a number of years. Many of them are eager to study expectedly in the Northwest. You know, it's impossible to ignore immigration as a challenge. And universities, they're obliged to contribute to solutions rather than to be seen as a cause or as a problem here. That's what we need to think about and yeah, then it's tough to lead a university. We need courageous leaders and wise ones. I think in mostly in understanding the teaching, you know, I'm a, I'm a teacher by training, teaching the next generation remains key that the values that grounded the EU and, and an open society, they cannot any longer be taken for granted. And that we should remain optimistic. Yeah, a moral duty. Yes. Popper said that. Especially I say in education. And then there is hope.
AU: It's very interesting. Okay. So, you know, you've outlined some of the stresses that you think the system's going to go through in the next few years. What's the best case scenario for Dutch universities? What are the reasons for optimism in the sector?
MvdW: Well, that's the collaboration that we were building on because we're very good in competition. You know that Dutch universities are extremely successful in winning European grants and international research competition in publications and impact scores. We were working, are working on our collaboration within the sector, and I think that is what we should wish for to come out stronger in that sense.
Not only, well there are two dividing lines in our system. One is between technological universities or technical universities and general universities. That's one thing that we are trying to bridge with these alliances. Very important. And the other one is between research universities and universities of applied sciences. And especially that bridge has been weakened over the last decade. And I started in a university of applied science and only went to research university after. And I know how important it is that you're able to start wherever in the system and find your way. So that, especially that bridge, I think we should work on to strengthen.
AU: Fantastic. Marijk, thank you so much for joining us. And it just remains for me to thank our excellent producers, Sam Pufek and Tiffany MacLennan, and you of course, our listeners tuning in. If you have any questions or comments on today's show, please don't hesitate to get in touch at podcast@higheredstrategy.com. Please sign up to higher education strategy associates, YouTube channel. Never miss an episode of the World of Higher Education podcast. Join us next week, and our guest will be Pennsylvania State University Professor David Baker. He's joining us to talk about his new co authored book, Global Megascience, Universities, Research, Collaborations, and Knowledge Production. Bye for now.