The board of directors says ‘substantial measures’ must be taken to deal with financial blows in the coming years.
What those measures are and how much will have to be cut is not yet clear. But ‘what awaits the universities is very serious’, college president Jouke de Vries told the university council on Thursday.
The new coalition’s outline agreement contains big cuts to higher education. These include the scrapping of funds for the sector plans and less money per student, and the governance agreements universities made with outgoing education minister Robbert Dijkgraaf seem to be off the table.
‘Dark clouds’
Although concrete figures are lacking, it is clear that the cuts will amount to millions in the coming years. ‘The future education minister will still have to make choices based on those outlines,’ said Hans Biemans of the board. ‘As a result, we cannot quite see what the changes will be. But it’s clear that dark clouds are gathering.’
According to the UG board, the austerity agreements made last year (TeRUG in Balance) have now been rendered insufficient. In the autumn, the university already faced a hefty cutback. It asked all faculties to draw up a plan to ensure that the faculties no longer have deficits by 2026 at the latest.
Consequences
‘But we can no longer execute TeRUG in Balance the way we’d intended,’ De Vries says. Once the consequences of the new agreement are clear, the university administration will immediately share them with the university council and faculties. ‘We will have to anticipate what this means for the university much sooner than in six months’ time.’