What is the real cost to society of students who fall behind with their studies?

Universities got something of a raw deal under the coalition agreement of the new Dutch government. If students fall behind with their studies by more than a year, they will have to pay a fine of €3,000 in extra tuition fees, making total of almost €5,000 per academic year. The principal argument made to defend this proposal is the suggestion that students who take too long to complete their studies are a financial burden to society. Is that really the case?

All educational institutions are responsible for ensuring that they design a curriculum that can be completed within the allotted time. However, a large number of students take rather longer. Many like to portray those who take longer than usual to complete their degrees as idle, foot-dragging students who spend their time drinking beer in the student bar while the rest of society foots the bill. But this is not the real reasoning behind the new proposal. What really lies behind it is the need to cut spending. If the government fails to make savings through this measure – because, for example, more students suddenly start completing their studies more quickly and no fines can be imposed – they will simply find another way to cut costs. In fact, the cabinet is planning to scale back central government’s contribution to university budgets by exactly the same amount that they hope to raise from fining students who fall behind.

Encouraging students to finish more quickly and fining those who take ‘too long’ is thus a spurious argument, the only purpose of which is to portray the proposed measure in a more sympathetic light along the lines of ‘if someone must foot the bill for the public deficit, let it be the lazy students who have fallen behind and are such a burden to us all.’

But even though this is not the real reasoning behind the proposal, I still feel the need to correct this misconception. We will return to the real arguments – about whether we want to make further cuts in higher education and the future of our knowledge economy – later. The approach being proposed will have a very damaging effect in that area.

First of all, let us be clear that unless they happen to be your son or daughter, students who take longer to graduate cost the government almost nothing. When a student takes longer than normal to complete their studies, it usually means they are finding it hard-going. If they do not pass a particular course within one year, this means a delay of a year. The extra costs for the educational institute are very limited, however, because the students only usually attend the lectures or lab sessions once. The only extra work involved is marking their exams again. This is a question of a few minutes’ work, and is often done by a teaching assistant or PhD student. It represents only a tiny fraction of the overall teaching load of the university.

For educational institutions, the difference between a quick student and a slow student is simply that the teaching load is spread over a longer period – it does not increase significantly. The number of study credits awarded does not change and this, after all, is a more accurate measure of how much work is being done by an educational institution, and therefore the costs that it must bear, than how these are distributed over time. Furthermore, universities only receive finance for the time that is officially allotted for a particular degree programme. Student grants and loans also stop after a maximum of five years, which is the length of time that a good student takes to gain a technical degree. Taking longer than the allotted time therefore costs the Dutch taxpayer nothing.

The only effect that study delays have on government coffers is that students who study for a few years longer will be paying income tax and contributing to the economy one or two years later than if they finish on time. If we pursue this train of thought to its natural conclusion, we should also be tackling people who work part-time, or not at all, or those who go abroad – things that we currently view as matters of individual choice. This logic would also suggest that the government is not there to serve the people, but vice versa. For most citizens, however, paying tax is not their primary goal in life. And the loss of potential earnings is certainly not equivalent to paying real up-front costs.

The only people who actually pay extra when students fall behind are the students’ own parents. For them, it is certainly more expensive if their son or daughter takes longer to graduate. How quickly (or slowly) students make progress is really a matter for parents and children to sort out between themselves. They might find it worthwhile to come to some agreement about this. Some parents do not mind at all if their children take a little longer to complete a difficult degree and make the most of their education. Those who call themselves liberal, or who use the word ‘freedom’ in the name of their party, ought to think hard before introducing such draconian fines when in government.

One certain consequence of this proposal would be to deter people from studying. After all, only those able to bear the financial risk should be prepared to start studying. It would also increase the drop-out rate for students in higher education. Both of these effects would be very damaging for our knowledge economy. The negative, long-term effect of this measure on the knowledge economy would far outweigh the short-term savings made in public expenditure.

We might conclude as follows: let us not invoke fallacious arguments about the burden of students who fall behind, when in reality that burden simply does not exist. And let us not make savings at the expense of our future – there are only so many cuts you can make before you reach the bone. Let us instead safeguard the future of our knowledge economy.

Prof. Jacco Hoekstra
Dean, Faculty of Aerospace Engineering
TU Delft
(took five years and three months to gain his degree)