In the current academic year, students welcomed the return of the basic student grant after a gap of eight years. And for students living away from home, there was more good news: a temporary increase of 164 euros per month to help them cope with a steep rise in inflation.
Yesterday’s vote in the House of Representatives put an end to that increase. D66 and SP had proposed extending the income support for one year, but the right-wing parties voted against their amendment. Only Forum for Democracy voted with the left to back the extension.
To be precise, students living away from home currently receive 466.69 euros a month. That amount will now fall to 302.39 euros from the coming academic year. For students still living with their parents, nothing will change. They currently receive a monthly payment of 121.33 euros.
Incidentally, these amounts do not include the supplementary grant that students can obtain if their parents’ income is below a certain threshold. The maximum supplementary grant is 457.60 euros a month.
Student organisations fired off an urgent letter to the House of Representatives earlier this week. In it, they argued that the additional income support should continue, not least because they see the standard basic grant as too low in any case.
To fund the one-year extension, D66 and SP wanted to tap into unused reserves in another ministerial budget. However, outgoing education minister Robbert Dijkgraaf disapproved of the plan. “Reallocating resources in this way is not within our remit of a caretaker government”, he insisted.