Five questions about … the millions for quality improvement in higher education

Universities and colleges receive millions of euros every year to invest in the quality of education. But the agreements on this expire at the end of this year. Will the university lose that money after that? Five questions and answers on quality agreements.

Why do universities get this funding?

When the basic student grant was abolished in 2015, the deal was that the financial savings from that would go towards improving education. The savings amounted to about €1 billion a year, so that amount should also be invested. To be eligible for increased funding, educational institutions did have to explain very precisely to the ministry how they would use the money to improve education. This agreement was referred to as the quality agreements. However, the promised 1 billion a year did not materialise: in 2019, it was only 192 million a year; in 2024, it rose to 573 million, barely more than half the promised amount. Of that, EUR received a total of EUR 84 million.

Now, the basic grant is back. Does that mean that the investments will also stop?

Although the new cabinet is cutting a billion euros from higher education, this particular investment will not stop. However, the name will change: the cryptic term ‘higher education quality agreements’ (hoger onderwijs kwaliteitsafspraken, HOKA) is replaced by the equally enigmatic ‘administrative agreements on education quality’ (bestuursakkoorden onderwijskwaliteit, BAOK). Universities will still get money to invest in the quality of education by 2025, in the amount of €250 million (€660 million together with universities of applied sciences). That is slightly lower than this year’s budget of 258 million. How much of that will go to Erasmus University is still unclear, but if the distribution remains the same as in 2024, it will be €22 million a year.

Should that money all go towards teaching quality or can the university do something else with it?

Good news for the administrators of this university, as politicians have decided something unique on this issue: it is letting go of the wheel and transferring the responsibility of spending to universities. Previous Minister of Education Robbert Dijkgraaf wanted to get rid of some of the ‘red tape’ around the approval of all plans, which all took much more time and money than intended. The money will thus become part of the total amount of money (the lump sum) the university receives from the ministry. What the university does with it afterwards is up to the university itself.

So what will the university do with that money?

Despite the university now having more freedom, the money will remain in its own budget, reserved for investment in the quality of education. This is fixed. How much will come of it in practice is still seriously in question due to the harsh cuts in higher education. Impact education and teaching innovation are actually being phased out in some faculties, and the question is what choices the university is making when budget gaps exist in other areas.

Meanwhile, has education really improved from all those millions?

This is a very difficult question with no clear answer, according to research by EM in 2021 and others. One of the main arguments for abolishing the basic student grant was that it would provide money for more lecturers per student. We can be brief about that: we did not achieve that, partly because the number of students has grown considerably. Now, this was not a priority for EUR when it came to utilising the savings from the basic student grant, as the university had already been working on this for some time and intensively. This is precisely why a lot has been invested in student support, teaching innovation and impact education. Some of that investment came later than planned, so the first students without a basic student grant were unfortunately not able to reap the benefits.
In addition, the pandemic threw a spanner in the works, as much of the money for the quality agreements was spent on COVID-proofing education. At the same time, less money came than promised.