The meeting was organized by student political party Groep-één. A small group of foreign students from various programs turned up to talk generally about how they are doing at the TU/e and about housing in particular.

“Our first semester as Master students is really heavy, with the course load and finding your way around. There is no time for a job. Perhaps things will be better when we start paid internships. Most students have some savings, but we don’t know how long we can survive like this. On the plus side, I’m pleased to be living on campus”, says Reyhan Zanis, who is from Indonesia and has a scholarship of 600 euros a month.

Students from outside the European Economic Area get an annual scholarship at the TU/e of 17,000 euros, half of which goes to tuition and fees. That leaves some 600 to 700 euros per month to live on.

Students are given a choice of housing on campus in a space box or in student houses on the forms they fill in to apply for a place as a Master student. But when they arrive, they find there is no room in student houses. The rent for a new space box has recently gone up to 400 euros, from 365.

A number of students said they would like to live in a Dutch student house, just to get to know Dutch people better and have a full experience as a student in the Netherlands. Rent in student houses is lower, but it is hard to get hold of a room because of waiting lists. According to Groep-één University Council representative, Jaap Hoekstra, Dutch students are also not keen on letting foreign students into the student houses because they don’t want to speak English all day on the one hand, and on the other they don’t want to live with people who don’t socialize.

Unaware
Representatives of Groep-één said they were surprised by the problems foreign Master students are up against. “We were unaware that things were so tough for people on scholarships and we will certainly bring this to the table in the University Council. I’m shocked that Reyhan uses the word ‘survive’. I’m sure this is not the kind of experience the TU/e wants Master students to have at this university. Apart from the damage to the students themselves, its just bad PR for the university,” says Geert-Jan Evers.

“The reason we started this committee is that many issues related to international students are unknown to us. We also think that foreign students can give us a fresh perspective on university policy in general”, says Evers. “We want this group to become a structured part of Groep-één that will help us look at all kinds of issues at this university. I hope it will be a starting point for foreign students who want to be more involved.”

In reaction to the findings of Groep-één, Executive Board chairman ing. Amandus Lundqvist informs us that he knows that the student grants provided by the TU/e are among the highest in the Netherlands. In addition, Lundqvist assumes that foreign students also have personal resources at their disposal when they go and study abroad. He does not see any possibilities for raising the amount of the student grant./.