‘Abolishing English-language higher education impoverishes Netherlands’

The Schoof government wants to reduce anglicisation in higher education. This would mean fewer international students make their way here and this should save the treasury 272 million euros per year.

Two scientists at the University of Groningen researched the economic effects in the long term. What would happen if all Bachelor’s programmes became Dutch-taught? The ScienceGuide platform put the spotlight on the article that appeared in July and that, incidentally, has not gone through peer review yet.

Students themselves aren’t particularly keen on education in Dutch, a representative sample taken by the researchers reveals. This holds even more true for the 400 internationals amongst them. The lion’s share – from inside and outside Europe – would be willing to pay significantly more tuition fees if English stayed the language of instruction.

On average, the 500 Dutch respondents don’t really care either way. They wouldn’t pay extra tuition fees for English- or Dutch-language education. They apparently do not share the concerns of the coalition parties, the researchers conclude.

Three quarters will leave

If Bachelor’s education became Dutch-taught, only a quarter of the European students would still choose the Netherlands, and most of them are from Flanders. For the non-European students, this is 13.8 percent. All in all, the Netherlands is at risk of losing at least three quarters of its international students, according to the researchers.

Higher education (research universities and universities of applied sciences) would then shrink by 72 thousand students, or 8.6 percent. To put things in perspective: this is more than the total number of Bachelor’s students at the universities of Rotterdam, Tilburg, Maastricht and VU Amsterdam.

But, the researchers say, the language switch and the signal that internationals are less welcome in the Netherlands will also have a negative effect on the international intake of Master’s programmes, even if those were to remain English-taught.

Brain drain

What’s more, the Netherlands will become less appealing to international scientists. The researchers assume that in relative terms, as many scientists as students will leave (8.6 percent). If that happens, the scientific output of the Netherlands can decrease by as much as 19 percent, the researchers estimate. This will have negative consequences for the economy. The gross domestic product will decline by 1.6 percent.

That damage can’t simply be undone, warn the researchers, especially now other countries around us are doing their best to become more appealing to highly-educated internationals.

They therefore think it would be better to make English-taught programmes more expensive, so internationals can keep coming. After all, they’re entirely willing to pay more tuition fees for this.

HOP, Hein Cuppen
Translation: Taalcentrum-VU