Cheps was commissioned to do the research by education minister Annette Nijs, who sent the report to parliament shortly before Christmas. The same report shows that universities have continued to spend as much on education on average per student in the past seven years. Even though they received less money from the government.
'To keep the education expenditure per student at the same level the institutes transfer money from research to education. Or they channel money from cheap to expensive studies', Cheps-researcher Ben Jongbloed found. 'This is all legal, but the question remains whether it is sensible to do this on a large scale or whether this can be sustained.'
That there is a large gap between the theoretical assumptions in the ministry distribution model and the practice at the institutes in particular between the arts and humanities on the one hand and the science and technology programmes on the other hand, is shown by the numbers in the Cheps research.
On average the universities spend 5,600 euro annually to train students in the arts and humanities. The universities receive approximately the same amount for each student in government contribution and tuition fees. For science and technology students, however, there is a large discrepancy: the institute invests about 13,000 euro per student in education, but receives only just under 7,000 euro in income through government contribution and tuition fees per student annually.
Does this mean that the government funding for the technology studies needs to be raised? Jongbloed: 'The education secretary has to decide this. Clear is that the government contribution is based on price relations set down fifteen, twenty years ago that do not correspond to today's reality. It cannot be the intention that expensive studies like sciences and technology can only exist by the grace of creative management of funds and cross-subsidies. It is about time that a new funding model was set up.'
transl. DvA
