Brain drain or brain gain?
On August 15 I was watching an item on the news about British students who come to study in the Netherlands. As far as I know, British education has a great name in Europe. So why do these Brits come to us for their degrees?
It appears that this academic year (2011-2012) the yearly fees for undergraduate studies in the UK are about £3,500, which is equivalent to €3,975 (or $5,733). The undergraduate fee in the Netherlands, if you are a first time student, is € 1.713. This rate is roughly 2.5 times lower. Next academic year (2012-2013) universities in the UK can decide the fees for themselves, as long as they will not exceed the £9,000 (€10,250) limit. Since there will be less government funding, a lot of the universities have decided to elevate their fees to exactly this amount.
The British government will, however, lend students the money. Once graduated and employed, the students will have to pay back this debt when they earn £21,000 or more. Each month graduates will pay back 9% of their income above that threshold. When the students have been unable to clear the debt after 30 years, the debt will be wiped out.
prof. dr. Elmer Sterken
Some of our universities have started actively recruiting British students. The rector of Groningen University, Elmer Sterken, says that by recruiting these students, the university is improving the quality of both its education and research. Now I wonder whether these – often underprivileged – students will help him accomplish this noble goal.
In Sweden as well as in Switzerland there’s a tendency to a stricter selection at the university gates. In Switzerland they are even putting a limit on the percentage of international students attending their universities, which goes against the Bologna Treaty*. In Sweden, fees for international students will be significantly higher (they are expected to be between €11,000 and €25,000) than for the Swedish ones (free).
At the Dutch-German border more and more secondary school pupils study Dutch as a second or third language, intending to find a suitable university in the Netherlands. Apparently, there’s an increasing capacity problem in German higher education.
Will this influx of international (European) students contribute to a brain gain or will this development result in higher fees and over capacity at Dutch universities, leaving Dutch students finding the university doors locked?
*Erratum: It is actually not a treaty, but a Process. This means that the signatories are under no legal obligations, participation is voluntary. So, even though Switzerland would ignore the Bologna Process, it has every right to do so.
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