An important improvement is that students whose parent is out of the picture can more easily access an additional grant. This applies, for example, to students who no longer have contact with one or both parents. In such cases, the student had to provide a declaration from that parent, which was often experienced as very difficult and painful. DUO therefore no longer requests this declaration in practice. This obligation will now also be formally removed from the laws and regulations so that it is clear for everyone. It is also established that if a student receives less than 15% of the agreed alimony, this amount is considered uncollectible. This way, students whose parents pay little alimony still receive a higher additional grant. The aim is to submit the legislative proposal containing these rules to the House in 2026.

This law also equalizes the rules regarding who is considered a parent and which income counts for calculating the additional grant for both schoolchildren and students. Because these rules currently differ, unequal situations can arise when someone transitions from secondary school to higher education. For example, a step-parents income could determine whether a secondary school student was entitled to an additional allowance, but not for a student regarding an additional grant. By equalizing these types of rules, the student financing system becomes clearer and fairer.

Another improvement that DUO will implement is raising awareness of the so-called repayment capacity scheme for former students, where this is not automatically calculated. For some people, the monthly amount they have to repay can be too high. This especially applies to individuals with a low or middle income who fall under repayment rules prior to 2012. However, over 200,000 people in this group are still not utilizing the repayment capacity scheme. DUO will therefore promote this scheme better with targeted communication so that people do not unnecessarily get into trouble. Additionally, those who qualify will receive an extra letter sent to their home.

For the measures being taken now, Bruins has allocated €1.2 million. Some issues that have been explored cannot be resolved at this time because there are no funds available for that. One of the signals is that MBO students can only recover their tuition fees upon request when they stop their studies early. HBO and WO students receive this automatically, but MBO students do not. The original reason behind this is that MBO students often do not have a starting qualification, while HBO and WO students do, and MBO students are thus encouraged to complete their education. The Exploration of Student Financing shows that adjusting the refund policy would structurally cost €25.4 million per year. There is currently no funding for that. DUO and OCW want to periodically reconsider the measures that cannot be taken now and continue to gather and develop new signals.

The Status of Implementation OCW is a report specifically aimed at the implementing organizations of OCW and provides insight into current events, developments, challenges, and dilemmas in the implementation of policy. To continue serving citizens and institutions well, it is important to work on simplifying policy and implementation. The Ministry of OCW therefore wants to maintain dialogue with the implementing organizations to address bottlenecks early and thus continuously improve the quality of service to citizens, institutions, and businesses. In recent years, only DUO published a Status of Implementation. The Status of Implementation OCW allows for input from all OCW service providers. Now DUO and the National Service for Cultural Heritage are included in this. In the coming years, more implementing organizations from OCW will be added.