Some 10% of Dutch students fail to complete a degree within 10 years and have to pay back their grants, student funding body DUO told website nu.nl at the weekend.

On average, students who fail to graduate have to pay back €10,000, the organisation said. In total, 20% of students don’t go on to finish a degree but DUO has discretionary powers to cancel debt payments.

This year almost 120,000 people started a degree course at a college or university, compared with almost 80,000 20 years ago. This has led to an increase in students dropping out, DUO said.

Student grants were scrapped from the beginning of the current academic year.