It has come to our attention numerous times that an increasing number of students have been running into financial and legal difficulties due to issues with the IB-Groep, a Dutch organization which provides scholarship and financial aid to students.

Although the IB-Groep is very helpful in financing study grants for Dutch and European Union citizens throughout their student years, its rules, regulations and contract obligations are very difficult to get around to. Un-updated mailing addresses, forms missing in the application process, not handing in your OV-pass on time are all problems which might lead to you having to return the full amount of money to the IB-groep and thus create great financial difficulties.

In order to assure that your collaboration with them is going as smooth as possible and in order to make students more aware of their financing options, ASIC, in collaboration with Michael Price, the Student Life Officer at UC, is working in creating and information package for students, containing not only all the rules and regulations which you should be aware of when receiving help from them, but also translated contracts and forms for international students.

As some students have also been running into difficulties also with former employees due to lack of information about their employment contract and rights, we are also looking into creating a section within this information package which also deals with labor rights in the Netherlands.

If these issues are familiar to you and you feel that your case might help us give better advice to students with these issues, please feel free to drop by our office and tell us about it. Your contribution would be highly appreciated!