Cost-benefit analysis: foreign students bring in millions

In the long run the Netherlands will have significant financial benefit from international students. The influx of these students comes with extra costs, but later these costs are ‘more than compensated for by (tax) income of highly educated graduates who stay in the Netherlands to work,” says the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB). The financial profit is about 740 million per year.

The CBP calculated the costs at the request of Dutch state secretary of Education Halbe Zijlstra. There may be other advantages, according to its report.

“There are indications that foreign students perform better than the average Dutch student. Although the quality of Dutch students abroad is not known, it is quite conceivable that, on balance,  students mobility contributes to the quality of education.” [MW/transl. YV]