The $12K per year is not from the direct subsidy. That all Dutchies know about. Also, Americans can't get that subsidy. IMO, it's almost always a better play for Americans to study abroad since European uni's are qualitatively high and cheap (compared to US), even unsubsidized.

Maybe there are some subsidies I don't know about, but that would not be general knowledge among Dutch people then.

The subsidies from government work like this:

- A student pays $2k per year (ok euro, whatever, can't find it on keyboard)

- The government pays about $8k per year

That adds up to $10k, bachelors are sligthly cheaper (I only heard the numbers for bachelors).

So if you don't want to pay the subsidy, you need to pay the full $10k (bachelor), or $12k (master)[1].

[1] Prices vary per university between $12k to $25k. About 75% of all education is on the $12k level (I've looked at this a lot), some are at $25k such as dentistry and I think med school is a bit more expensive.

Here are some prices (click on master (pdf) ): https://students.uu.nl/praktische-zaken/geldzaken/collegegel...

I'm now seeing that they have jacked it up since I last checked. I'm wondering what other Dutch universities have done.