Whether D66 really will be the biggest party will only be known in a few days. But it looks like higher education can look forward to better times, thanks in part to the many voters in the Aula who voted for Rob Jetten’s party.
On the way to the voting location in the Aula on 29 October 2025. (Photo: Sam Rentmeester)
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Whether D66 really will be the biggest party will only be known in a few days. But it looks like higher education can look forward to better times, thanks in part to the many voters in the Aula who voted for Rob Jetten’s party.
Things will remain uncertain for a while. Maybe until even the very last moment when the Electoral Council announces the definitive results of the 2025 House of Representatives elections. Both D66 and PVV have 26 seats. With 22 seats, the VVD is the third largest party, and GroenLinks-PvdA the fourth.
In Delft, D66 got a bit more than one quarter of the votes (25.4%). The second largest party was GroenLinks-PvdA with 20.2%. The PVV was in third place with 9.7%.
With 38.1% of the votes, D66 was more popular in the polling stations in the Aula than in the Municipality of Delft as a whole. GroenLinks-PvdA too scored relatively well in the Aula, as did Volt and Partij voor de Dieren, two small left leaning parties.
Voting in the Aula
More than 3,000 people in Delft voted on the TU Delft campus. They could do so in the Aula where there were two polling stations. The voters were not all students or staff members as people from Delft who were not connected to TU Delft in any way could come and vote, and people from outside the municipality who had requested a voting pass could do so too.
With 38.1% of the votes, D66 was more popular in the polling stations in the Aula than in the Municipality of Delft as a whole. GroenLinks-PvdA too scored relatively well in the Aula, as did Volt and Partij voor de Dieren, two small left leaning parties.
Other student cities
Other student cities also voted more left and progressive than the national average. After D66, GroenLinks-PvdA was the second largest party in student cities, while nationally the left came fourth. PVV, that the latest polls say will be the largest or second largest party in the country, did worse than average everywhere.
Despite the current uncertainty, D66 is celebrating. They know that even if the PVV is the biggest, the chance that the PVV will be able to put a new Cabinet together is very small. And this will be good for the liberals. Should there indeed be a Cabinet led by D66, it would be ‘good news whatever happens’, said the Hoger Onderwijs Persbureau (higher education press agency) in a press release on Thursday. While the current Cabinet rolled out strong economising measures, D66 plans to invest in education and academia.
Three percent
The Kenniscoalitie (knowledge coalition), a partnership that includes the Universities of The Netherlands, the Dutch Research Council, and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, hopes to ‘take steps with politicians to create a stronger knowledge and innovation country’, writes its Chair, Marcel Levi, in a press release. Levi calls on increasing investments in research and innovation to 3% of the gross national income.
This mirrors (in Dutch) Rob Jetten’s, the D66 party candidate, position. Furthermore, D66 wants to introduce a higher basic grant, a minimum internship payment for everyone, a ceiling on study debt interest rate, and doing away with the BSA (binding recommendation on continuation of studies). Whether these wishes come true, will depend on the agreements made during the formation of the new Cabinet.
ISO and LSVb
The Intercity Student Consultation (ISO) mostly sees opportunities, wrote its Chair, Sarah Evink, on Thursday in a press release. ‘Hopefully the time in which students were the overlooked children in the Cabinet has passed […] The parties now have to convert these promises into action.’
Whether that will happen will transpire in the coalition Government. The Dutch Student Union (LSVb) is very concerned about this, it states in a press release. The Union believes that as the future of students was hardly addressed in the campaigns, it does not have much confidence in this. The students union says that it will remain alert and, if necessary, take action. ‘We will not forget the long-term study penalty and the cutbacks, so if need be, we are ready to take a stand.’
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