New coalition wants basic grant for university master’s after hbo

The House of Representatives wants to right an old injustice, it emerged during the debate on the education budget. HBO students should always receive a basic grant for their master’s, even if they follow it at a university.

Officially the House of Representatives is discussing the education budget of the caretaker cabinet Schoof this week. But that cabinet, made up of BBB and VVD, is practically a thing of the past. All eyes were on the new coalition.

The CDA came up with a plan, supported by coalition parties VVD and D66, to correct a much-discussed quirk in the law. Why do students from universities of applied sciences only receive a basic grant for a master’s from a university of applied sciences and not for a master’s at a research university?

Majority

That is quite unfair, CDA member of parliament Jeltje Straatman said on Wednesday in the first half of the debate. Students at research universities always receive a basic grant for their master’s, even if they take it in higher professional education.

The highest court had also previously called the rules ‘not entirely watertight’, but left it to politics to change them. Straatman announced she would submit a motion calling on the minister to amend the law.

The plan is in any case supported by GroenLinks-PvdA, member of parliament Fatihya Abdi said after the debate. That makes a majority in the House of Representatives.

Reverse now?

During the debate, representatives asked the new coalition many questions about its plans. At the end of January D66, VVD and CDA presented their coalition agreement. It included a plan to use 1.5 billion euros to reverse the education cuts of cabinet Schoof.

But those cuts are still in the budget that the House of Representatives is debating this week. Can’t the coalition reverse those cuts immediately, asked GroenLinks-PvdA and the SP among others, without waiting for a new cabinet?

D66’s Ilana Rooderkerk thought that was a bad idea. “Then we will run into new problems”, she said. She proposed accepting the cabinet Schoof’s budget, ‘but with the agreement that we of course will reverse the cuts completely with the new agreement and reinvest that 1.5 billion euros’.

Not exactly like it was

Many opposition parties wanted to know where the money will go. Rooderkerk didn’t reveal much about that. In the debate she first said that ‘clear choices’ need to be made. “We aren’t going to put everything back exactly like it was”, she warned.

However, the coalition does intend to reverse ‘the cuts to science and research’, Rooderkerk said. She didn’t make clear whether she also wanted to restore the scrapped starter and incentive grants, which universities were allowed to distribute themselves.

The debate continues on Thursday afternoon. Then parties can submit their motions and caretaker minister Gouke Moes will respond.