Good news for student athletes and ACLO: Dutch universities will be allowed to continue co-funding affordable sports facilities.
This was announced by Minister of Education Eppo Bruins during a debate with the Lower House. He said it was a bad thing that sports have become ‘terribly expensive’ and is willing to make an exception. Whether and how this exception will also apply to cultural facilities, hospitality, and contract education remains unclear.
‘It’s very good news for now that the minister, to put it simply, is embracing student sports and other servies’, says Hendrike Schut, community manager at ACLO, USVA, the University Museum, and Studium Generale. ‘The only question that remains is: how do we interpret the statements he made?’
Affordable sports
For decades, universities have helped fund affordable sports facilities, like the University of Groningen does with ACLO. There, students can get a basic membership for 59.95 euros per year. For an additional 70 euros per year, they can access all facilities. That’s a great deal compared to the cheapest gym membership at Basic Fit, which costs 24.95 euros per month.
However, minister Bruins stated just last month that this shouldn’t be allowed anymore. Public (taxpayer) money should not be used freely for ‘private activities’, as it could distort the regular market and constitute a form of state aid—which is not permitted.
Concerned opposition
Many Lower House members questioned the minister, and advocacy organisations like Universities of the Netherlands, Student Sports Netherlands, and umbrella sports organisation NOC*NSF also voiced their concerns.
At the core, their argument was the same: sports are important for students’ physical and mental health and play a major role in their social lives. Since regular sports memberships are very expensive, removing the discount would deprive many students of the opportunity to participate.
‘Grey area’
Minister Bruins now seems to understand those concerns. In the debate, he explained that what he wanted to clarify with the tightened rules is that there’s a ‘grey area’ that student sports have fallen under the past twenty years. He wants to make an explicit exception for this, which can then also be funded through the education budget.
Whether this means student sports won’t become more expensive at all is still uncertain. The minister is now asking all universities to provide a detailed overview of how much money they currently spend on this. It’s also unclear what the new rules will mean for the construction of the new ACLO sports centre (which costs over 51 million euros, with the University of Groningen expected to cover 52 percent of the cost).
Exception
It’s also not yet clear whether the minister will make an exception for other ‘private activities’, such as the cultural programmes offered by USVA and the university’s contribution to the University Museum.
‘Sports have been the poster child for this lobbying effort’, says Schut. ‘But that doesn’t mean the same values don’t apply to other services. We’ve seen the added value of culture for students for decades—some students prefer sports, others lean toward culture. The minister did mention the word ‘culture’ during the debate, so our job now is to figure out exactly what that means.’