UT vice-president Machteld Roos shared the financial state of affairs with the University Council on Wednesday morning, albeit in a concise form. The latest management report has not yet been published.
4 million euros cut
What the available figures did show is that the UT is diving deeper into the red this year than budgeted: a deficit of 13.4 million euros. In order to achieve a deficit of 7.5 million euros, the UT wanted to cut 12 million euros. Of this, 4 million euros has currently been realised.
This means that the immediate financial picture does not look much prettier than it did when the previous management report was published. At that time, the UT was heading for a deficit of more than 14 million euros.
Income less than budgeted
'It's a better result than in 2023, but we're lagging behind. We're not there yet, so that calls for action', Roos explained. She said that the acute measures announced in July, such as the stop on student assistants, do not yet show immediate results in this management report. It contains the figures up to and including August.
Both the University Council and the Executive Board sounded relieved about the recent influx of students. 'We expect that about a hundred more bachelor's students will have enrolled compared to last year,' said rector Tom Veldkamp. In the presentation that the Executive Board shared with the Council, it was stated that the UT welcomed about 2100 bachelor's students and 2050 master's students last September. However, these figures fall short of the budgeted intake: according to the budget, 2372 bachelor's students and 2112 master's students should enroll.
What is also becoming clear is that the UT is lagging behind when it comes to securing external funding. Budgeted are revenues of 133 million euros from the so-called second and third money streams. In the previous management report, the income seemed to amount to 125 million euros, the forecast has now been revised downwards: 119.9 million euros.
Budget 2025
The Executive Board also included the University Council in drawing up the budget for next year. In that case, the objective for the services is to break even and for the faculties to record a maximum deficit of one percent on the first flow of funds (added up to roughly 3.5 million euros). All the units have only just submitted their budgets. According to Roos, 'the gap is smaller compared to last year, but still a gap that we have to manage together'.
