According to several of the opposition parties the record breaking budget brings a new grant pause for higher education.

The finance political spokesman for the Conservative Party Jan Tore Sanner understands the students´ disappointment.

- Everyone who is involved with higher education has every reason to be disappointed. The budget involves that the grant pause in higher education keeps going, says Sanner.

Also the Liberal Party of Norway concludes with the fact that the consequence is continued meager times for the knowledge sector.

- After four years of underfeeding the universities and colleges the government is yet to discover the seriousness of this, says Trine Skei Grande, parliamentary leader in the Liberal Party.

But the grants to the amount of new students will not affect the study quality, thinks cabinet minister Tora Aasland.
The Minister of Research and Higher Education Tora Aasland does not agree that this is a bad budget for the university sector. She thinks it´s possible to increase the number of students without the drop of quality. She doesn't understand how the university has figured out that they need to cut 80 million kroner.
- We only make the framework. We are not the ones who are making the cuts, says Aasland. She thinks the grants counting almost 300 million kroner for a total of 5 600 new places of study, of which 3 600 were established in the revised budget last year, is enough to ensure study quality.
- We do what we´ve always done when it comes to financing the places of study. To prepare for the education wave is one of our main goals in the budget and including the places of study from the revised budget we have a total of 5 600 new places. Then we can ask ourselves: Is this enough? Our prognoses shows that 80 000 new students can come the next few years, but we have to look at all the application numbers every year to be sure. That´s why we don´t give more money than the money we´re giving now, until we see the volume of the applying to higher education, says the cabinet minister.
Minister of Finance Kristin Halvorsen says to VG TV that she understands that the students are disappointed by the budget she presented yesterday. – This was an important aspect in the election campaign, and they might not have expected it to be in the governmental platform. It doesn´t, and there´s nothing about it in the budget either, but I do hope that this is something we can manage during this governmental persion, says Halvorsen.