So far we have not heard of lenient measures such as lowering or suspending the rent for short stay internationals. The choice they are presented with is simply to either pay the rent, or to terminate the contract with a month's notice. This generous gesture by the institutions entails exactly what any other tenant in a normal situation would legally be entitled to. A normal tenant however, would also get his/her deposit back, while the internationals were required to make a downpayment for July which will not be refunded. Still the situation is presented in a manner which implies the lessors and the RUG should be lauded for their compassion, as they mercifully offer to restore a small part of the rights they have attempted to withhold from their tenants all this time.

Pay or leave. This hard line is remarkable for the following reason. Normally it's the short stay lessors who argue that it is simply impossible to lease out their rooms for a short period until August, should any tenant want to terminate the rent before the end of the semester. This perceived threat of vacancy is what supposedly legitimizes their resort to short stay contracts. This implies that for each room for which the contract is terminated now, no revenue is generated until the start of next study year. As many students are still intending to return and thus can still be expected pay some amount of rent, would it not make a lot more sense for the RUG to look for other flexible solutions? That way they can at least hope to generate some revenues from the rent. 

In these days of well intentions, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that we are dealing with a scheme that is completely absurd to begin with. A scheme in which an educational institution with a strong desire for internationalization, succeeds in having lessors and local government cooperate to deprive tenants of all their rights, by using short stay contracts. International tenants pay the price for the global ambitions of the university. Thereby I'm not referring to tuition and regular housing costs, but to the offloading of financial risks via high all-in prices and the negation of specific civil rights that should protect the tenant's human right to housing.

Unfortunately these kind of short stay contracts are once again normalized and treated as a fact of life, even though the legislator clearly has very different intentions.