UvA students pay too much tuition fees: student council loses confidence in management

This is what chairman Noah Pellikaan of the central student council said on Thursday evening. “We have reached a point where the board is not fulfilling its role properly,” he says. “This is not about a subjective or political subject, but about administrative bungling.”

With the motion of no confidence, the students are calling for the resignation, or otherwise impeachment, of the Executive Board.

The reason for the motion is the so-called ‘Article 21 scandal’ by the student council. This means that thousands of students may have paid too much tuition fees.

This mainly concerns students from outside the European Economic Area (EEA), which includes the European Union but also countries such as Iceland and Norway, who pay a higher tuition fee. This so-called ‘institutional tuition fee’ this academic year amounts to at least 9,460 euros for a bachelor’s program (330 euros more than last year) and 17,500 euros for a master’s degree (1,000 euros more than last year).

For comparison: students within the EEA, including Dutch students, pay 2,314 euros in tuition fees per year.

Possible gap of five million euros

In principle, tuition fees increase every year with inflation. But the UvA itself has determined in its regulations – namely Article 21 of the enrollment decision – that a student’s tuition fees will not increase during the first four years of his or her studies. However, the opposite happens on the students’ accounts: a higher amount is debited from them every year.

Pellikaan states that five thousand students may have paid an average of one thousand euros too much in tuition fees, which could potentially leave a hole of five million euros in the university’s budget.

At least twenty students have reported to the student council. They complain that they have to take action themselves to get money back. Pellikaan states that he has been in discussions with the university since November to change this – without results. “This is the last thing we can do,” he says.

Quota for English-language courses

The future of international students is much discussed at the university. The UvA sounded the alarm three years ago because it could no longer handle the large influx of international students. A trial involving the exclusion of international students, based on a quota for English-language variants of a course, worked well. The Ministry of Education was not pleased with this experiment and blew the whistle on the university.

Rector Magnificus Peter-Paul Verbeek repeated this in January Het Parool that ‘the lecture halls and teaching capacity’ can no longer cope with the number of international students. At the same time, he emphasizes the importance of internationalization: “As the UvA, we have a top global position because so many people from other countries work here.”

The last time the student council hesitated with a motion of no confidence was in 2016; That motion was ultimately not adopted because the Executive Board resigned before then.

The University of Amsterdam announced through a spokesperson on Thursday evening that it is not yet aware of the contents of the motion of no confidence, and therefore cannot yet respond.

About the author: general reporter Tahrim Ramdjan has been writing for Het Parool since 2019, including about everyday news, law, young people, discrimination and the South East district. Tips are welcome [email protected].