News item | 04-06-2025 | 18:00
The student finance system must become clearer and fairer for students. Some rules become simpler, communication is improved and in other cases the law is amended. That is stated in the state of the implementation of OCW, which Minister Bruins of Education, Culture and Science has sent to the Lower House today. DUO and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science have collected signals since 2022 about what could be improved. Former students, student organizations and other stakeholders have thought about this.
Minister Bruins (OCW): “We want to make it easier for (former) students to find their way in the rules and that they will get the help they are entitled to faster. That fits in with the human and service-servant government that we want. I also want to indicate that we cannot immediately resolve all the signals we have collected, because we are not needed to make it clear to it now. is. “
Refusing parents and alimony
An important improvement is that students whose parent from the screen is easier access to an additional grant. For example, it concerns students who no longer have contact with one or both parents. In such cases, the student had to provide a statement from that parent, which was often experienced as very difficult and painful. Duo therefore no longer asks this statement in practice. This obligation is now also formally deleted in laws and regulations so that this is clear to everyone. It is also stated that if a student receives less than 15% of the agreed alimony, this amount is seen as impaceable. For example, students whose parents hardly pay any alimony still get a higher supplementary grant. The aim is to send the bill in which these rules will be adjusted to the Chamber in 2026, among other things.
Rules are aligned
Differences in the rules about who is seen as ‘parent’ are also seen in this law, and what income counts for calculating the supplementary grant, paralyzed for students and students. Because those rules now differ, unequal situations can arise when someone makes the switch from high school to further education. As a result, for example, a high school student was able to determine the income of a stepparent whether someone was entitled to an additional allowance, but as a student not at an additional grant. By equalizing these types of rules, the student finance system becomes clearer and fairer.
Less repayment per month
Another improvement that DUO is going to implement is making the so-called capacity scheme for former students where this is not already automatically calculated. For some people, the monthly amount that they have to pay off may be too high. This applies especially to people with a low or middle income who fall under repayment rules from before 2012. Yet more than 200,000 people in this group do not yet use the capacity scheme. DUO will therefore better bring this scheme to the attention with targeted communication so that people do not get into trouble unnecessarily. The people who are eligible for this will also receive an extra letter.
Not all signals now solve
Bruins has made € 1.2 million available for the measures that are now being taken. A number of things that have been explored cannot yet be resolved, because no money has been released for this. One of the signals, for example, is that MBO students can only get their tuition fees back on request if they stop their studies earlier. HBO and WO students automatically get this back, but not MBO students. The original reason behind this is that MBO students often do not yet have a basic qualification, HBO and WO students do, and MBO students are so encouraged to finish their education. The study finance exploration shows that adjusting the reimbursement policy structurally costs € 25.4 million per year. There is currently no coverage for that. DUO and OCW want to periodically reconsider the measures that cannot be taken now and continue to collect and develop new signals.
State of the OCW implementation
The state of the OCW implementation is a report that is specifically aimed at the OCW implementing organizations and provides insight into current affairs, developments, challenges and dilemmas in the implementation of the policy. In order to be able to continue to serve citizens and institutions properly, it is important to work on a simplification of policy and implementation. The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science therefore wants to continue to talk to the implementing organizations to tackle bottlenecks early and thus permanently improve the quality of services to citizens, institutions and companies. In recent years, only DUO has released a stand of the implementation. In the state of the OCW implementation, there is room for input from all OCW service providers. Now DUO and the National Service for Cultural Heritage are included. More implementing organizations of OCW will be added in the coming years.