Students with disabilities incur more study costs than the rest of the student body and all too often are left to pay the extra out of their own pockets, Lydia Vlagsma of Ieder(in) reveals. This makes higher education less accessible to these students, something she believes needs to change.

What additional costs do students with disabilities face?

“The nature of these costs can vary widely. Students who are on medicine or need regular blood tests can wind up paying the full excess on their health insurance year after year. In other cases, their disability or illness can slow down their academic progress. And then you have the visually impaired student who has to use a special kind of ‘swelling paper’ in technical drawing so they can feel what the graph they are drawing looks like. That's a good deal more expensive than a regular pack of A4.”

Education Minister Robbert Dijkgraaf has one billion euros to spend on the basic student grant and the supplementary grant. Won’t that help students with disabilities too?

“Essentially, it will help all students, including students with disabilities. But because they incur additional costs, additional compensation should be available. Although they are entitled to an individual study supplement if they are unable to work alongside their studies, this still isn’t enough to cover their costs.”

From today, that individual study supplement will be the same in all municipalities: an allowance of €300 for students aged 21 or over and an allowance of €150 for students aged 18 to 20. Is that good news?

“We welcome this news because it means the supplement will now rise in 170 municipalities. But it’s a slap in the face for the students who had to make do with less in recent years. And €150 for 18-year-olds is still very little when you consider that Statistics Netherlands puts the average monthly earnings of an 18-year-old student at €345.”

In some municipalities, the study supplement was actually higher. Does that mean students there will now receive less?

“We were concerned about that, but this week we heard that the amounts just announced are ‘minimum payments’, so municipalities are allowed to exceed them. I don’t expect to see any supplements being reduced as a result.”

Shouldn't the study supplement be made dependent on the parents' income? That could lead to a higher supplement for students who need it more.

“The supplement exists because these students are unable to take on a part-time job alongside their studies. It therefore makes no sense to arrange things so that you make some of them dependent on what their parents earn. After all, the supermarket doesn’t pay you any less for stocking shelves if your parents have more money. Besides, the additional student grant is already dependent on parental income. And that is available to students with and without a disability.”

Ieder(in) points out that students with disabilities often have trouble finding the financial help that is already available. Does that say more about findability or how badly they really need the financing?

“It means that a huge obstacle course has been put in place. Students whose health is compromised already have to cope with reduced energy levels and the challenge of managing their illness in other areas of life. Everything from attending hospital and scheduling appointments to arranging support in and around their classes. So that obstacle course is something they can definitely do without. There are also too many different organisations involved. For student financing and a supplementary grant, they have to go to DUO. But to obtain an individual study supplement, they have to make a separate application to their own municipality. Some municipal officials don’t even know how the system works and refer the students back to DUO. One solution would be to put DUO in charge of everything.”

What would your ideal situation be?

“For me, the dream is for all those separate budgets to disappear and be replaced by an inclusive financing system, where you can indicate what extra costs you incur because of your disability so that they can be covered. That might also include the chance to put your studies on hold for a while or take longer to graduate. Additional costs should not be a barrier for students with disabilities to enter higher education.”

Wouldn’t that open the door to fraud?

“Some costs are straightforward to check, like insurance premiums and the excess on health insurance. But no system is entirely fraud-proof. If you start checking every single detail, you end up with the kind of benefits scandal we’ve seen in recent years, where control became more important than helping people make ends meet. I think the students who abuse the system are far outnumbered by the students who are currently short of money. So the question becomes: which problem do you think is worse?”