Many universities of applied sciences and virtually all universities impose a strict requirement on first-year students: if they fail to earn a certain number of credits, they receive a negative binding study advice (BSA). They are then removed from the program.

The BSA threshold is often around forty credits, but some programs require sixty credits—meaning students must complete the entire first year in one go. If they fail, their only option is to start a different program or enroll at another institution.

This “shuffling around” of students has long been criticized. Students who fall just short of the BSA threshold still have a real chance of earning a degree. This was observed, for example, by Hogeschool Rotterdam after the COVID-19 pandemic, when BSA rules were temporarily suspended. Vrije Universiteit also reported this last year.

“Significant drawbacks”

In a study published today in the economics journal ESB, the conclusion is even sharper: for both students and institutions, the BSA offers few benefits and “significant drawbacks.”

Statistically, half of the students who are dismissed due to a BSA would have completed their program. This is the conclusion of PhD candidate and economist Sander de Vries of Vrije Universiteit, based on data from Statistics Netherlands (CBS) covering 700,000 university bachelor’s students across 351 programs. Never before has the impact of the BSA been studied across so many programs and students.

Lingering

The National Student Union (LSVb) sees the study as confirmation of its long-held position: the BSA mainly causes stress while delivering little benefit. “Nothing is stopping policymakers from simply abolishing the BSA,” says LSVb president Maaike Krom in response.

Universities see it differently, a spokesperson for Universities of the Netherlands (UNL) says. “Students themselves experience the BSA as positive more often than negative. During the COVID years, we saw that students who continued with fewer credits often dropped out at a later stage.”

A commonly cited argument in favor of the BSA is that students with limited chances of success may otherwise linger in their programs for a long time if they are not dismissed after the first year. During the COVID years, these students were indeed able to continue, only concluding much later that they might not be suited to their chosen program. The new study does not clarify how large this group is.

“Not weak students”

Researcher Sander de Vries examined first-year students who started between 1994 and 2014. During this period, more and more programs introduced a binding study advice—until by 2014 all 351 bachelor’s programs in the study had implemented a BSA.

For each program, the researcher analyzed students’ chances of success before and after the introduction of the credit requirement. Using CBS data, he was also able to determine how many dropouts eventually obtained a degree in a different program. “The results show that students who drop out due to the BSA are not necessarily weak students,” the researcher writes.

Right place

One of the goals of the BSA is to help more students end up in the right place, the universities’ association UNL emphasizes in its response. However, the study does not show that this goal is achieved. “It is not clear that [students who drop out due to the BSA] perform better in another program,” it states.

On the contrary: overall, 1.7 percent fewer students obtain a degree due to the introduction of the BSA. In contrast, students who do meet the credit requirement graduate an average of three weeks sooner. However, this acceleration is “statistically indistinguishable from zero,” the study notes.

A number of large universities of applied sciences have already abandoned the BSA, partly in response to criticism from former Minister of Education Robbert Dijkgraaf of D66. He argued that the measure primarily increases stress among students.

Dijkgraaf wanted to introduce new rules to weaken the credit requirement nationwide, but this met with strong resistance from universities. Coalition party VVD was also not enthusiastic about it at the time.

When the VVD later formed the Schoof cabinet with the NSC, PVV, and BBB, Dijkgraaf’s proposal was immediately dropped. The parties agreed not to relax the BSA rules. The new coalition agreement between D66, VVD, and CDA contains no provisions regarding the BSA.

This article was translated using AI-assisted tools and reviewed by an editor.