{"id":102649,"date":"2019-09-05T16:36:42","date_gmt":"2019-09-05T14:36:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=102649"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:24:27","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:24:27","slug":"eight-questions-on-the-possible-return-of-the-basic-grant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2019\/09\/05\/eight-questions-on-the-possible-return-of-the-basic-grant\/","title":{"rendered":"Eight questions on the possible return of the basic grant"},"content":{"rendered":"

What does it mean that all opposition parties are now in favor of the return of the basic grant? The PvdA (Social Democrats) is the most recent party that has changed its mind about the basic grant, PvdA party leader Lodewijk Asscher has announced that it is their goal to get the basic student grant reinstated. What\u2019s more, the party believes students currently enrolled should also get back payments. This situation raises a number of questions.<\/p>\n

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The previous government with the VVD and PvdA parties wanted to scrap the basic student grant, and they were finally successful with support from the D66 and GroenLinks parties.\u00a0 The decision would allow the government to free up hundreds of millions of euros for tertiary education and they claimed the amount might even go up as high as one billion euros annually.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this meant that studying suddenly became very expensive and many young people felt burdened by concerns about how to finance their studies. Some even decided not to further their education.<\/p>\n

Eventually, Groenlinks withdrew<\/a> their support for the new student loan system and yesterday PvdA followed in their footsteps<\/a>. Only D66 and VVD still believe in the system and have indicated that they would like to await the results of the upcoming evaluation before making any adjustments.<\/p>\n

What exactly does PvdA want?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The social democrats want<\/a> a new basic student grant (not the old one, because that one also only served the very rich), and make a supplementary grant available for a larger group of students. PvdA leader Lodewijk Asscher said yesterday that students whose parents earn less than one hundred thousand euros per year should be eligible for this supplementary grant.<\/p>\n

The plan is still in the works, but currently the supplementary grant is a maximum amount of \u20ac396 per month. The old system (some students are still covered by the former system) provided a maximum of 579 euros per month for a basic student grant and a supplementary grant.<\/p>\n\n\t

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