Facts

Explanation
WOinAction observes a continuing deterioration in the funding of Dutch university education. This observation is endorsed by the thousands of employees who passed our petition in December 2017 ondertekenden. The facts below support our claim:

Fact: Since 2000 there are 68% more students, but the goverment funding per student is 25% lower.
This is shown by figures from the Association of Collaborating Dutch Universities (VSNU), based on the government letters from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) and the Ministry of Economic Affairs (EZ). The figures are based on the funding of all Dutch universities, with the exception of the Open University. The following graph of the VSNU shows the quick increase in student numbers and the sharp decline of goverment funding per student since 2000:

The prognosis in the graph above from 2018 onwards is based on the current multi-year budget of the ministries of OCW en EZ, where the prognosis of the law studievoorschot has been included in the numbers. This shows shows that even with this law in place the trend of declining government funding is not reversed.

Fact: Dutch spending on academic education lags behind other countries.
In countries such as Germany and China, investment in scientific education is clearly increasing, whereas in the Netherlands this is not the case. For example, in Germany this went from 0.79% of GDP in 2008 to 0.96% in 2016. In Netherlands it remained virtually stable in the same period (2008: 0.50 to 2016: 0.55) with a very strong increase in student numbers.

In comparison with other European countries, a particularly low percentage of GDP in academic education is spent with a relatively large number of students. This is evident from the Public Funding Observatory published by the European University Association. The table below shows the expenditure per country. This shows that the expenses of the Netherlands lag far behind with countries such as Germany, Austria, Croatia, etc.

Positie	Land	deel van GDP (%)
1	Zwitserland	1.39
2	Zweden	1.26
3	Estland	1.13
4	Denenmarken	1.12
5	Finland	1.11
6	Frankrijk	1.08
7	Norway	1.03
8	Iceland	0.98
9	Duitsland	0.96
10	Kroatië	0.87
11	Poland	0.87
12	Oostenrijk	0.8
13	Slovenië	0.78
14	UK – Scotland	0.69
15	Spanje	0.65
16	Turkijke	0.60
17	Servië	0.57
18	Slowakije	0.56
19	Nederland	0.55
20	Letland	0.53
21	Hungary	0.52
22	Litouwen	0.48
23	Italy	0.41
24	Cyprus	0.4
25	Tsjechië	0.4
26	Portugal	0.38
27	Ireland	0.37
28	UK – Northern Ireland	0.37
29	Luxembourg	0.36
30	UK – Engeland	0.16
31	UK – Wales	0.14
32	Griekenland	0.06

Data is from 2016, Source: Public Funding Observatory