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Income and performance of Dutch universities

fact sheet
27 November 2024
Funding Diplomas university

Photo: Arie Kievit/Hollandse Hoogte

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How are the income and performance of Dutch universities related? In this factsheet, we compare the income of universities for education with the number of diplomas obtained. We pay extra attention to technical universities and try to see whether the income keeps pace with the number of bachelor's and master's degrees.

In short

  • Number of diplomas is rising, but the revenues are rising more sharply.
  • Revenue is increasing faster at technical universities than at other universities.

Dutch universities receive money for education in various ways, for example via the state contribution and via tuition fees. The two figures below compare the income and the number of diplomas in 2010 with those of subsequent years. The first figure relates to all universities together. The second figure highlights the four technical universities.

Revenues and educational performance increase


To provide a better picture of the financial data, both graphs have been adjusted for inflation from 2010 onwards based on the CPB figures (2024). In the first figure (all universities together) we see that the total national contribution increases by 42%. The education component increases even more sharply: 72%. And if we also include tuition fees, the increase is almost 66%. The number of master's degrees increases by 63% and the number of bachelor's degrees by 71%.

In conclusion, we can say that the number of Bachelor's and Master's degrees is increasing at a slower rate as the education part of the national contribution and the education component plus tuition fees. The total national contribution is lagging behind.


Technical universities are lagging behind in terms of income

In the second figure (the four technical universities of Delft, Eindhoven, Twente and Wageningen) we see stronger developments in many of the parameters. First the income. The national contribution rises to 47%. The education component rises to 107%. The education component plus tuition fees rise to almost 100%. Then the diplomas. Bachelor's degrees rise to 103%. Master's degrees up to 107%.

This leads to the conclusion that the performance of these four technical universities lags behind the state contribution for these universities.   


Few differences between universities

In the figures above, the individual universities are not included separately. We have done this because there are few major differences between universities. For the sake of completeness, we can mention a few minor differences:

  • The universities of Nijmegen and Utrecht are fairly constant in terms of the number of diplomas (especially for masters) and in the development of the national contribution.
  • The universities of Leiden, Maastricht, en Delft are growing, especially in the case of master's degrees.
  • The growth in bachelor's degrees is greater in Wageningen and Rotterdam.
  • Leiden is the university with the strongest increases and Master's degrees.


More diplomas due to internationalisation and growing interest

Two developments underlie the sharp increase in the number of diplomas. The first is the internationalisation of universities. The second is the growing interest among Dutch young people.

In the period 2010 - 2023 , the number of foreign students has quadrupeld to 89,750 in 2023 (72,3% of them comes from the European Economic Area and are therefore eligible for funding) (Rathenau, 2024). We see this internationalisation in all the countries around us. The Netherlands ranks sixth in term of international students in higher education. We have more international students than Japan and South-Korea, a little less than France and Canada, and considerably less than the United Kingdom and Germany.

The second development that is causing an increase in the number of diplomas is the growing interest in university education among Dutch young people. There has been a trend since the 1960s for educational careers to become longer and longer and to end up higher and higher. The number of VWO graduates attending university education is likely to continue to rise slightly until the mid-2020s to 37,190, before declining sharply to 30,100 VWO graduates in 2023 (CBS, 2023). The effect of this second trend is present in the figures but is relatively small.