This year, first-year Mechanical Engineering students had to design a safe door. A different team got the keys and had to unlock it, without forcing. That was not always easy.

TU Delft is the backdrop for the Campus Open Days on Thursday and Friday. It is the first period in the academic year when pupils can visit and have a look at the academic institution where they may go and study. Have they already taken a decision?

Higher education institutions will have increased difficulty in offering courses taught in English. Education Minister Eppo Bruins has written to the House of Representatives informing them that he intends to enforce stricter rules than his predecessor envisaged.

Two Dutch universities are discontinuing their scholarship programmes for Chinese PhD students. They get insufficient funding and there are knowledge security concerns. Other universities should also exercise caution, VVD politicians warn.

If all Bachelor’s programmes became Dutch-taught, higher education would shrink by 8.6 percent, researchers from Groningen have calculated. International students and scientists will stay away and this will end up costing the Netherlands a lot of money.

AthenaStudies, the commercial exam training organisation, has to cease its dishonest method of advertising. This was the judgement of the Advertising Code Committee after complaints raised by TU Delft and others.

Slow-progress penalty, fewer international students, less science… The cabinet is still planning to make cuts in higher education and research. The Dutch Research Council (NWO) and open science will also have to tighten their belts.

About two hundred protesters came to Domplein in Utrecht on Monday morning for the ‘Alternative opening’ of the new academic year. Down with the cutbacks, was the message. Perhaps there will even be a strike.

The academic year started on Monday 2 September, as did the protests against the announced cuts in Dutch higher education. Those cuts will go ahead. That’s the message given by Education Minister Eppo Bruins in response to written questions from the House of Representatives.

The fine for taking a long time to finish their studies is causing a lot of stress, worry and is making doing a degree programme in higher education extra hard for students with disabilities, says Marissa van der Tol, Chair of Student Onbeperkt. “And that while we already are 3-0 behind other students.” She argues for students with a disability being exempted from the ruling.