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Why do we see an increase in the student population? Who cares about the nominal study time? Who are the active students at Scintilla? Though these questions seem to be completely unrelated, the common denominator is – like almost everywhere in the world – money. Understanding where the money comes from and goes to is key in understanding the strategy, policy, and politics of universities. In this article I’ll elaborate on the question how universities are funded, what type of allocation is used, and various phenomena that result from that method of allocation. ...

Due to the corona crisis, universities had to close. For some students nothing changed, for some people it is a paradise and for some their whole world fell in despair. Whatever kind of student you are, you have to cope with the new laws and the new learning system. After some experience you can probably understand there are some positive sides and downsides to this whole affair. First of all, it is quite nice to wake up in the morning and not have to cycle all the way to college. ...

Back in the old days, Electrical Engineering students studied a bit longer than nowadays. A way to increase the success rate of students, with lower costs, was the implementation of the Twents Onderwijs Model, TOM for short. This had a lot of influence on students. The different subjects throughout the year were woven into modules. The subjects in those modules were way more coherent and the module itself had a very structured way with a project as the climax. ...