Student - May 25, 2012
Long-term students lose public transport privilege
Students who take too long to complete their studies will not be given new public transport smart cards in September. This appears in a so-called spring agreement reached among the political parties VVD, CDA, D66, GreenLeft and the Christian Union.

Basic student grant
The basic student grant for Master's students will not be scrapped next year, according to the agreement. This confirms what the CDA and PvdA said to the Higher Education Press Agency at the start of the month: the decision to implement a loan system for Master's students will be postponed to after the elections. The basic student grant provides Master's students with 3200 euros next year if they live out and 1147 euros if they live with their parents. The students would have to forego this amount of money if the cabinet had not fallen. Another issue which will be decided later is the extension of the loan repayment period from fifteen to twenty years.