New package of measures to ease financial concerns of students from Ukraine, Russia and Belarus: 'It's getting harder and harder'

A major obstacle for students from these countries is the height of tuition fees for non-EU students. These are much higher than for Dutch students: they pay about 8,000 euros per year. Saxion, as an institution, cannot legally reduce this fee itself, director Timo Kos indicated yesterday during the meeting of the Central Participation Council (CMR).

Therefore Saxion asked Minister Dijkgraaf to reduce the tuition fees for this group. This also applies to the fact that students under student visa cannot work more than 16 hours per week. Dijkgraaf was at Saxion on Monday and spoke with three Ukrainian students. He said afterwards that he was genuinely moved by that meeting. Saxion has a relatively large population of 75 Ukrainian students, 52 students from Russia and 1 from Belarus.

Timo Kos: "We have asked the minister for an exception, we are cooperating with the Association of Universities of Applied Sciences in this case. When you are faced with high costs, cannot access your money, and cannot work either, things become very difficult."

Computer Science student Oleksandr Kupri from Ukraine agrees that it is a struggle financially at the moment. "At the moment it all has to come from savings, because work is largely at a standstill in Ukraine. For me that's okay for now, but it's very tense for next year, when the tuition fees have to be paid. That's a large amount of money in one sum. "

In addition to requesting the Minister's intervention, Saxion itself is coming up with an extensive package of measures to lessen the financial worries. For example, students are granted postponement of payment for the instalments of tuition and course fees until 1 September 2022. Also, from the emergency provision within Onderwijs en Student Support Support (OSS) 10,000 euros for shopping vouchers is made available. The municipality of Enschede previously made 2,500 euros available for this purpose.

A third measure is the establishment of an emergency provision, whereby students can apply for a loan in order to provide for their acute living expenses. This loan can be converted into a gift if the student has obtained at least 50 ECs before the end of academic year 2022/2023.

In addition, there is a regular emergency provision, to which students can appeal to for the payment of tuition fees, also, in individual cases, payment of tuition fees may be postponed. OSS also promises students psychological support by deploying student psychologists, student deans, and counselors, and is investigating ways to help students find part-time jobs.

Yesterday, the University Council indicated in a meeting with the Executive Board that they consider it very important that the package of measurements is flexible, so that adjustments can be made if the situation of the students requires it. Also, attention should continue to be paid to psychological problems in this group.

According to the executive board, this package of measures is a first step; the expectation is that a broader package of measures will be necessary, given the nature of the conflict. This also includes, for example, matters that until now have partly fallen outside Saxion's scope, such as housing and the labor market. Also, the number of Ukrainian students may increase in the coming years due to the flow of refugees.