It looks from here like another Swedish win on Saturday night – but going into Eurovision week, the Netherlands (largely singing in French) was one of the other countries jostling to be top of the odds.
Its entry for Eurovision 2025 is Claude Kiambe, who was born in Congo and fled with his mother and siblings when he was nine years old, first living in an asylum reception center in Alkmaar before moving to Enkhuizen.
He got his HAVO high school diploma in the Netherlands and later started studying hotel management at a university of applied sciences – but dropped out when his career took off, largely because of… inflexible timetabling.
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The Netherlands has seen a rise in populist politics in recent years, with some interesting impacts on higher education that it’s worth reviewing as Reform continue to rise in the polls in the UK.
Controversy kicked off in mid-2024 when the newly formed Dutch coalition government – led by Geert Wilders’ far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) – announced its intention to slash education budgets.
That caused nationwide protests – with 25,000 student, staff and rector [ie VC] demonstrators in The Hague, garnering support from business leaders, mayors, and health organisations in the process.
This was fairly new territory for the Universities UK equivalents used to having conversations behind closed doors – but a decision was taken that a new more public and confrontational approach would be needed.
There’s a “Rector’s Conference” for universities and another for universities of applied sciences – and as well as taking part in the demos, the latter collaborated with students on a major “write in and tell them about them about the impacts” bit of mass activism.
At the University of Twente the Executive Board and faculty deans expressed strong support for the national protest in November, encouraging staff and students to attend, arranging free transport, and even joining the demonstration to voice concerns about the impact of the cuts on education and research.
And it worked – to some extent. The planned €2 billion cuts were scaled down to €1.2 billion, and there was a scaling back of international student funding cuts from €293 million to €168 million by December.
But resistance intensified into early 2025 with “relay strikes” across multiple universities and legal challenges led by Tilburg and Radboud University, as tangible impacts emerged as institutions like the Free University of Amsterdam closing entire departments and others like the University of Twente announcing dozens of staff redundancies.
And now, they’re very publicly taking the government to court over the cuts.
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It’s like this, it’s like that
There’s quite a lot of politics to unpack. First, there’s the populist government’s explicit ideological positioning against what it sees as progressive academic culture.
PVV (the populist “Party for Freedom”) representative Reinder Blaauw made this clear during a June 2024 parliamentary meeting when he celebrated the cuts as a way to force universities to “reconsider their priorities” and choose between political activism or “actual” education:
For too long, the activist woke culture dominated the lecture halls and education institutions… And all too often, political activism was put above scientific integrity.
He also specifically questioned…
…how curricula on critical race theories, decolonisation, feminism and global justice make our students better analytical thinkers,
Unlike previous cuts from right-wing governments, the rhetoric frames the cuts not as unfortunate fiscal necessity, but as a deliberate political project to reshape Dutch academia. As political scientist Roderik Rekker observes, the PVV has pulled off a remarkable piece of political doublespeak:
It’s possible the budget cuts are indeed populist policymaking, whitewashed by the rest of the cabinet. But it could also be the opposite – that they were implemented for different reasons [to save money], and that the PVV is passing them off as the realization of their own populist agenda.
Then there’s the question of Dutch language and identity. The coalition’s proposal to reduce English-taught programmes and require more Dutch-language instruction speaks to broader anxieties about national identity and sovereignty.
While some academics have long raised concerns about the over-anglicisation of Dutch higher education, the populist government has folded those pedagogical questions into a much more nationalist political project.
Third, there’s the housing crisis – a problem that has been weaponised in service of a broader agenda. As in many European countries, student housing shortages have created real pressures in university towns.
But rather than addressing this through housing policy, the government has used it to justify restrictions on international students.
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It goes up, it goes down
Coalition minister Robert Bruins has employed all sorts of rhetorical tactics to evade responsibility for the breach. In a March 2025 analysis, eight distinct evasion strategies were identified – blaming other causes, claiming lack of comprehensive view, shifting responsibility, expressing trust in the system, rerouting problems, calling for patience, leaving no room for alternatives, and letting others navigate the fallout.
Confronted with universities’ deteriorating finances, Bruins typically responds that “how they implement (budget cuts) is up to the institutes themselves,” (that line should sound familiar to anyone in the UK) while simultaneously claiming he “cannot assess what critical factors apply for specific institutes.” The circular reasoning allows him to implement cuts while disowning their consequences.
So if confrontation rather than collaboration became the name of the game at the end of last year, it’s just stepped up – now universities are taking the government to court over the cuts.
At the heart of the legal challenge is an allegation of breach of trust – the unilateral cancellation of a ten-year administrative agreement signed in 2022. That promised €300 million annually for starter and incentive grants through 2030, creating a framework that universities relied on for investing, planning and recruiting staff.
At the insistence of the minister, universities quickly started allocating grants,” the UNL recalled, explaining how institutions adjusted their operations based on this commitment. The challenge centres on whether a new government can simply void binding agreements without consequence.
And around, and around
For students, the political battles translate into highly problematic proposals. Most notable was a proposed “long-study fine” – a €3,000 penalty for students taking more than one extra year to complete their degrees.
The long-study penalty is obviously also a way of encouraging children to complete their studies a bit faster,” said BBB (an agrarian and right-wing populist political party in the coalition) MP Claudia van Zanten.
But former Education Minister Robbert Dijkgraaf countered that, noting that the fine would penalise “ambitious students who like to develop themselves alongside their studies by, for example, doing administrative [ie volunteering] work” as well as “students who unfortunately fall ill during their studies or who have a disability.”
SUs were unequivocal in their opposition – and the withdrawal of the fine represented a major victory for the Netherlands’ two NUSes – it has one that does research, policy and lobbying work, and one that’s more activism focussed. But other threats remain, most notably to student sports and extracurricular activities.
In April, the government announced plans to end subsidies for university sports facilities, with student sports passes potentially rising in cost from €200 to €700 annually. Jon de Ruijter, director of Erasmus Sport, called this a “devastating blow” that threatens student wellbeing:
The trend is that there is increasing attention to student wellbeing, and sport is important for that… It also concerns social functionality, breaking loneliness and mental health.
TU/e University Council student member Jeannique Wagenaar explains the broader educational implications:
Students who engage in extracurricular activities manifest themselves better in society. So there’s a broader interest at stake here.
Housing costs also continue to squeeze students, with rental prices set to rise by up to 7.7 per cent in 2025 – the highest increase in nearly 30 years.
The Landelijke Studentenvakbond (one of those two National SUs) noted that this hits students particularly hard, given many lack access to housing benefits and those under 21 earn only minimum youth wages.
SUs see these various pressures as interconnected. ISO chairwoman Mylou Miché:
They’ve cut the basic grant, are cutting spending on education, and now they want to take away sport… If pensioners can take cheap sports lessons, why not students?
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Chanter un, deux, trois
The Netherlands has been at the forefront of European internationalisation in higher education, with approximately half of university programmes taught in English or bilingually. The openness has helped Dutch universities punch above their weight globally, with all research universities now ranking in the top 150 worldwide.
But the populists see this as a problem to be solved rather than an achievement to be celebrated. Bruins’ “Balanced Internationalisation” bill requires at least two-thirds of bachelor’s programmes to be taught in Dutch and gives the government power to approve any English-language offerings.
Universities have hit back, arguing it will devastate their international standing and ability to attract talent. UNL president Caspar van den Berg called it “an austerity exercise” that will:
…impoverish education, deprive us of important scientific talent and also scare away international students, whom we desperately need in our country.”
Some have attempted to play the economics card. University of Amsterdam finance director Erik Boels reckons that “every euro of cutbacks in the short term costs €3.50 in tax revenue in the long term,” as international students who stay in the Netherlands after graduation contribute significantly to the economy.
And former Education Minister Jo Ritzen similarly noted that:
…20 to 30 per cent of economic growth in the Netherlands can be attributed to foreign students who find their way into the Dutch labour market.
Some observers have suggested the Netherlands may eventually follow Denmark’s trajectory – which implemented similar restrictions on international education five years ago only to completely reverse them when the economic impacts became clear.
But others have argued that the economic arguments fall on deaf ears, and are tools that fight old battles when the populists are in charge.
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C’est en haut, et en bas
The cuts also expose a geographic dimension – but on that issue there’s argument within the governing coalition. Universities in border and shrinking regions see disproportionate impacts, because they tend to rely more heavily on international students from neighboring countries.
The regional disparity led BBB senator Frans van Knapen to break ranks and demand special consideration for institutions like the Open University in Heerlen, where 100 jobs were at risk.
Every time we absolutely want something, there is enough money,” van Knapen insisted during Senate debates, which has prompted opposition parties to pounce – partly because BBB is both a coalition partner implementing national austerity and a party founded to defend rural and regional interests against centralized policy-making.
As the cuts take effect, the contradictions will almost certainly become more pronounced – and the universities’ strategy is very much to expose them publicly.
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Que sera, oui, sera
Research has also been hit particularly hard. Of the €748 million reduction negotiated in December 2024, only a small fraction benefited science and research funding.
It is disappointing and worrying that the largest part of the cuts will remain on research,” said Marcel Levi, chairman of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).
This creates a contradiction in the government’s rhetoric. As UNL president van den Berg pointed out:
Innovation is mentioned 85 times in the government programme; it is the solution for almost everything the Netherlands is faced with. It is unprecedented that such drastic cuts are being made to the source of innovation.
Cuts to starter grants for junior researchers of €217 million pose particular problems for renewing the academic workforce and maintaining the Netherlands’ research competitiveness.
It’s in direct opposition to European goals of investing 3 per cent of GDP in research and innovation – the Dutch investment will amount to just 2.3 per cent.
Rens Bod from the University of Amsterdam described the compromised budget as “disastrous for universities and ultimately for the Netherlands,” adding that the government’s rhetoric against “woke studies” makes this “a direct attack on academic freedom.”
Differences have emerged over the retention of starter grants for early-career researchers. While the December compromise preserved some funding for these grants (though still cutting €217 million), Leiden University’s Professor Remco Breuker called this decision “perverse and obscene” in the context of broader cuts:
The rest of the cuts will force us to lay off many colleagues, while a minority of lecturers who just started working will receive €300,000 in starting funds… This is going to tear apart departments.
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How much time do we have together?
The Dutch education cuts don’t exist in isolation. They form part of a broader pattern across Europe, where far-right governments are targeting higher education and research funding.
As Nature reported in October 2024:
…A surge in far-right parties entering governments across Europe is raising concerns for science. The parties, whose focus is typically immigration, care little about research.
Italy, Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, and Austria have all seen similar developments. HE is becoming a dividing line in European politics, where higher education – once seen as a crown jewel of national prestige – is increasingly viewed with suspicion by populist governments.
Back in NL, universities are now in damage-limitation mode, with institutions like Erasmus Sport focusing on “increasing revenue creatively” rather than implementing immediate fee hikes. “We are not going to panic by implementing a huge increase in our sports pass price for students and staff in September,” says de Ruijter.
But the long-term outlook remains pretty bleak. Tim van der Hagen, rector of Delft University of Technology, warns that damage to the Netherlands’ international reputation “may be even more damaging than the budget cuts,” and leading academics abroad now “hesitant to consider positions in the Netherlands, while established researchers within the country are beginning to look elsewhere for opportunities.”
The ongoing challenge will be reconciling the Netherlands’ need for knowledge-based economic growth with the current government’s ideological stance. As former university president Jouke de Vries observed, it represents “a U-turn in policy,” demolishing former minister Dijkgraaf’s billion-euro investment “to make up for lost ground.”
For UK universities and students watching the Netherlands experiment unfold, there’s a clear message – preparation for similar confrontations should begin now, not after Reform secures parliamentary power either outright, or in some sort of coalition.
The Netherlands’ experience demonstrates how quickly a new populist government can dismantle long-standing assumptions, agreements and funding structures using rhetoric that frames universities as bastions of “woke activism” rather than engines of national innovation.
What has worked in the Netherlands – moving from behind-closed-doors discussions to public confrontation, legal challenges, and visible protest – may offer a playbook for the playbook.
As Reform UK continues to rise in the polls, the sector would be wise to start building coalitions with business leaders, local governments, and health organisations, while developing a more robust and public defense of higher education’s economic and social value – and a more visible set of stories about the impacts on those attracted to the populists. Even the populists struggle when they look like the enemies of opportunity.
The path from polite policy conversations to pitched battles over institutional survival can be short. Waiting until after an electoral victory to develop a counter-strategy will almost certainly be too late.
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