Dozens of students received a combined sum of approximately €250,000 last year because their course programme was terminated early. In the 2015-2016 academic year, the students, who were predominantly from Brazil, took an online master degree from the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences (Hogeschool Rotterdam) whilst in their home country, but the quality guarantee proved to be unsustainable within a year. The Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences pulled the plug from the programme, refunded students their tuition fees and added compensation.
This can be learned from answers given by the administration of the university of applied sciences to questions from Profielen about the financial arrangements related to the termination of the online programme, which was based on the existing Consultancy and Entrepreneurship master degree by the Rotterdam Business School.

Compensation of 25%

Apart from the development costs and other cancelled investments, the termination of the programme alone costs more than 300,000 euros. The Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences has refunded the tuition fees of all students, with added compensation of 25%, in full and final settlement. This has cost the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences almost 250,000 euros. As far as is known, all students have accepted the arrangement.

A number of students have taken or will take up the university of applied sciences’ offer to continue the master degree ‘offline’ in Rotterdam. The Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences will pay their tuition fees at €11,000 per year. Other costs, such as lawyers, bank charges, and a project leader to phase out the programme, bring the total to €350,000. The original tuition fees received totalled €56,000.

Collaboration with Brazilian partner INEPAD

The damage was incurred by -among other things – a contract detrimental to the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, entered into by ex-director of the Rotterdam Business School Cees van der Kraan with collaboration partner INEPAD, a private educational organisation.

In this contract, parties agreed that INEPAD would receive two-thirds of the tuition fees, and Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences would receive the rest. INEPAD was to recruit the students and hire people to mark the Portuguese-language exams. The Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences was to provide the online courses.

Due to the conditions of the cooperation agreement, the risk of this foreign private education venture remained fully with the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, as the Profielen investigation has shown. Although the university of applied sciences was only due to receive a third of the tuition fees from Brazil, it did refund the full tuition fees as received from students. Plus the 25% compensation.

Less than expected

At the time of termination, 65 students were still attached to the programme. As the programme started later than planned and the tuition fees were payable per term, only €200,000 of the forecast 65 times 11,000 euros (€715,000) had been paid.

Of those 200,000 euros, 56,000 euros ended up with the university of applied sciences. This is slightly less than the one-third stated in the contract. This could be due to the fact that the contract with INEPAD also stated that Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences’ share would decrease as the number of students increased. It is not clear why this clause was included in the contract. The Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences compliance officer and risk manager, who carried out an investigation into the decision-making process involved, call this clause ‘’remarkable’, but they do not elucidate on this issue in their report conclusions. INEPAD does not respond to questions from Profielen about the agreed distribution of the tuition fees.

As spending public funds on private education is not permissible by law, the termination of the programme is at the expense of the RBS private master degree programme.

In a written response, former director Cees van der Kraan actually denies that INEPAD was his project. According to him, the project was set up by a teacher and a former education manager for the master programmes. ‘Other than telling them I thought it was a nice idea, I have had no involvement.’

Text: Olmo Linthorst & Dorine van Namen
Illustration: Demian Janssen