Corona support for students leads to cutbacks in secondary vocational education and higher education
An unexpected cutback in education has surfaced in the Spring Memorandum. MBO and higher education have to give up, because students in the corona crisis are entitled to a student grant for longer.
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Billions in aid have been flying around in recent months. In the next two years, 284 million will go to higher professional education and 83,6 million to universities, it was said recently known. For secondary vocational education, this is 224 million: 54 in 2021 and 170 million in 2022, according to the recent report administrative agreement.
Yet apparently a gap has emerged in the education budget. Part of the 8,5 billion euros in support measures for education has not yet been covered. One of the support measures is that students receive a few months longer student finance. They are also allowed to use their public transport student card for longer. But the cabinet does not want to spend extra money on that. MBO and higher education have to pay for it, according to the Spring Memorandum that the cabinet published on Friday. The amount will increase from 40 million euros in 2024 to 149 million euros in the year 2027.
Coverage
Actually, the amount is even higher, because the education ministers also use 91 million euros from the so-called 'end-of-year margin' as 'intertemporal coverage' for these measures. This concerns a remainder of the previous budget year that the ministry can postpone. That money cannot be spent on other purposes for the time being. This means that support for students currently weighs 220 million euros on the OCW budget, unless the House of Representatives does something about it. An upcoming coalition can also make other agreements.
There is also a windfall. The distribution of self-tests and the associated communication in secondary vocational education and higher education will probably be 63,5 million euros cheaper, so that the costs will remain at 71,5 million euros. At least, that is the estimate 'based on the most up-to-date data'. The rest of the money will remain available for the self-tests, if necessary. I don't know why it's so much cheaper.
