Last year, the secretary made performance agreements with all universities, including arrangements with regards to honors programs. These extracurricular programs for the best students are thought to promote excellence. Five percent of all students should take part in such programs. Some institution, including TU/e, decided to raise the bar even further. “In our Vision 2020 we state that ten percent of our students should be in a excellence program by then”, says dr.ir. Lex Lemmens, dean of the Bachelor College at TU/e. “The secretary and we agreed that seven percent of those students must be enrolled in an excellence program that’s been accredited by Sirius; the other three percent will consist of students doing two majors at once, or are professional athletes.”

Lex Lemmens can’t imagine universities “plan to increase their tuition fees for honors programs all at once, at last that’s not what I’ve heard”. TU/e doesn’t have any plans that point in that direction at the moment, the dean stresses. “We’ve just started our Bachelor College, which comes with a new honors program as well. Since the program will only start in September, I’d say: let’s see how that goes for a year. But I can’t speak for the Rector and the Education Management Team, of course.” Lemmens does mention he’d like to discuss the issue with the Education management Team after summer.

Secretary Bussemaker states that it’s “under strict conditions and in a limited number of cases” that universities may experiment with a separate tuition fee for honors students, which can be no more than twice the statutory tuition. In doing so, Bussemaker meets the wishes of political parties CDA and VVD, who proposed the idea back in April.