Record increase: Tuition fees go up by more than €200
A new setback for students: As of September 2024, tuition fees in higher education are likely to increase by more than €200. The fee will exceed €2,500.
Tuition fees rise with inflation every year. Groceries, clothes, electricity, and café visits have become more expensive, so then tuition fees go up, too. That’s the agreement.
Last year, inflation was about 9.4 percent, peaking above 14 percent in September and October. In March and April, inflation dropped again to four or five percent.
So tuition will go up from €2,314 (as of September 2023) to €2,532 (as of September 2024). Who knows; the ministry may calculate this slightly differently, but this is roughly what it will come down to.
Unrest
In previous years, tuition fees always increased by a few tens: between €22 and €71. Political unrest arose when tuition fees for 2023/2024 threatened to skyrocket by more than €200. Minister Dijkgraaf also thought this was too much. He was previously considering €50-60, he told the House of Representatives.
That became €105. In fact, Dijkgraaf adjusted the regulation to make tuition less sensitive to peaks and troughs in inflation. The ministry used to look at inflation in April; now it takes inflation into account over an entire year, from May through April.
Inflation overestimated
CBS itself believes that inflation has been overestimated recently and is going to adjust its calculation method starting in June. But that won’t help students yet. The old figures will not be revised, statisticians report.
The ministry did nothing last year with the information that CBS was going to change its method. It came too late. Dijkgraaf answered written questions from the CDA and Volt in the fall. This time will be no different.
No more reducing tuition by half
In addition, as of September 2024 the halving of tuition fees for first-year students and second-year students in teacher training programs will disappear. This is being done, in part, to expand the basic grant and supplementary grant.
In the first years, the proceeds could also go to provide income support for students living away from home, was the thought for a while. They would receive an additional €100 per month. There seemed to be a majorityfor this in the Lower House.
But this will not happen, according to the Spring Memorandum that the government published last week. The money will flow back to the treasury unless the House of Representatives resists.
Old regulation
Under the old arrangement - which now no longer applies - tuition fees would have risen to €2,421 by September 2023. For 2024, the fee would then have become €2,547: €15 more than where it now stands.
