Curriculum
The RSM MScBA in Accounting & Financial Management is one academic year’s duration. Core courses are compulsory and will be offered during the autumn semester (22 EC). Master electives (18 EC) are offered during the spring semester, of which one elective can be chosen from another MSc programme. During the year, students work on a master thesis project (20 EC).
Please note that certain electives may be very popular. Although we can place most students in the elective(s) of their choice, there are no guaranteed places.
Core Courses
View all core courses below:
Financial Decision Making and Control
This course integrates advanced managerial accounting topics with recent techniques of financial management and strategic analysis. It focuses on preparing, evaluating and interpreting financial information for managerial decision making in different types of organization (manufacturing and service companies; for-profit and not-for-profit). Topics covered include advanced cost allocation techniques (like Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing), evaluation of financial information to support project appraisal and capital budgeting, pricing strategies, as well as the latest techniques for customer profitability analysis and other short- and long-term investment decisions.
The course involves the extensive use of the case method to analyse and discuss how financial information integrated with non-financial information is used to effectively support managerial decision making. Students are expected to apply appropriate analytical frameworks to diagnose and solve complex problems by emphasizing the connection between financial information and data analysis techniques that fit with management’s specific needs. The course provides a highly interactive environment that combines theory and practice sessions with group assignments, presentations and discussions.
Review the course guide for more details.
Taught by Dr S. Kramer and J. Zhao, MSc.
International Financial Reporting
This course provides an overview of the key issues in financial reporting. We use International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) as our anchor and relate the requirements for selected topics to the underlying concepts and principles. This will help you learn to make informed judgements and think critically about financial reporting problems. These are necessary skills for your future career, whether you will be preparing, auditing or using financial statements. But perhaps even more importantly, this course examines the international and political processes that shape the accounting standards and practices in Europe and the rest of the world. For every selected reporting topic, we take a step back to look at the underlying problem and critically evaluate the solution that the current standards provide.
Financial reporting is a powerful tool that influences the allocation of scarce resources across market participants. Although the IFRS Conceptual Framework identifies investors as the primary users of financial reports, we consider the economic consequences and impact on other stakeholders and society at large. The current accounting standards and practices are central to this course, but we critically discuss the limitations of financial statements. In addition to the traditional, shareholder-oriented view of financial reporting, we explore alternative views as guided by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s). We discuss the challenges of measuring and reporting a firm’s performance and financial position, in a changing business environment. The course contributes to developing a critical mindset that helps you to address the challenges of financial reporting and your knowledge on how your decisions and actions, as a future financial manager, accountant or controller, affect investors, other stakeholders and society.
Taught by Dr M. Koning.
Presentation and Social Skills
Accounting is the language of business. Given that the role profile of financial managers has broadened substantially in recent years with a particular emphasis on management skills, accounting and financial management graduates from our programme more than ever need to be able to communicate the key implications of this (sometimes complicated) language to a variety of different audiences in a convincing and easy manner.
Therefore, the department of Accounting and Control offers this 1 EC course to provide students with the necessary tools for preparing a good presentation and communicating its key messages effectively. It is mandatory for all incoming students in accounting and financial management.
The course format will be multiple sessions with experienced coaches and companies. To pass this course, students will need to attend the sessions. An alternative assessment format will be to prepare a presentation on a subject recorded on video.
Taught by N. Constantinescu.
Reporting, Analysis and Valuation
In this course in ‘Business Analysis and Valuation’ you will learn the basic concepts of financial statement analysis, enabling you to understand how financial reports are used by investors and to take a fundamental approach to equity (and debt) valuation.
The course has a practical emphasis. We adopt the view of an active investor and apply methods of fundamental analysis in a series of real-life exercises, cases, and assignments involving listed companies. We examine various valuation methods—residual earnings, abnormal earnings growth, and discounted cash flow approaches to valuation, among others—and ask which one will give us an edge. We do all this under the strict discipline of a fundamentalist: separate what you know from speculation and anchor in what you know from analysing financial statement information.
Just as importantly, we learn how to handle accounting and financial reports in valuation. We see that valuation is really a matter of accounting for value. The course combines accounting principles and investment principles to answer the question: How do I account for value so that I can challenge stock prices with some confidence?
As members of RSM, we aim to be a force for positive change in the world, using as guidance the framework set out by the UN Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) to address the most urgent social, economic, and environmental challenges. Business analysis and valuation can play a leading role in allocating resources to sustainable companies and, thereby, accelerate the transition to a sustainable economy. We will discuss how environmental, societal, and governance (ESG) performance affects firm value. For example, a strategy analysis (Learning Goal (LG) 2) includes the assessment of a firm’s innovation (SDG 9) and responsible production (SDG 12), which can significantly affect a firm’s expected profitability and growth, two key drivers of future performance and value. Credit agencies may increasingly lower their assessments of firms’ creditworthiness (LG 7) for environmental liabilities expected to result from pollution (SDG 6). Similarly, when pricing risk for valuation purposes, environmental damages significantly affect a firm’s cost of capital (LG 8).
The course discusses techniques that are commonly used in an equity research department of a bank, independent research firm, or equity hedge fund. However, the material covered in the course is just as relevant to the corporate business analyst or financial consultant, for private equity analysis, for evaluating acquisitions, restructurings and other investments, and for calculating the value generated by strategic decisions. Thus, the course is of interest to those contemplating careers in investment banking, security analysis, accounting, consulting, and corporate finance.
Taught by Dr C.P.R. Pietsch.
Analytics in Accounting and Financial Management
The course introduces students to analytical methods that support the creation and communication of business-relevant knowledge from accounting and financial management data. Accounting and financial management specialists inside and outside the firm use data analytics in various tasks. Examples of such tasks are forecasting sales, uncollectible accounts, and cash flows to support budgeting and planning decisions; journal entry validation to support data accuracy analysis and fraud detection; and investment selection using big data and scenario modeling. This course familiarizes students with essential analytical tools in accounting and financial management. It covers the following areas:
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Data management. Creating knowledge from data requires identifying and managing decision-relevant data. The course brings students hands-on experience with relational database management systems (SQL), eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) data, and R procedures for collecting, cleaning, and structuring data.
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Data visualization. Students learn to create data visualizations and dashboards that help evaluate data quality, communicate insights, and support informed decision-making.
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Analysis of structured financial data. Students learn to understand and apply descriptive analytics (e.g., identifying red flags in accounting data), diagnostic analytics (e.g., understanding cost variances), and predictive analytics (e.g., in financial forecasting, budgeting, and reporting) using the above tools and supervised machine learning techniques (such as regression, k-nearest neighbor classification, and decision trees).
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Analysis of textual data. Students learn to understand and apply various approaches in textual data analysis, helping them capitalize on the increasing availability of textual data relevant to accounting and financial decisions.
The course consists of (1) lectures that focus on theory and illustrations and (2) workshops that focus on skills development, with an emphasis on data analytics using R.
Taught by Prof Dr E. Peek.
Your Future Career
The aim of ‘Your Future Career’ is to prepare RSM students at an early stage in their master's for their careers.
The online modules will help you make crucial steps towards the most suitable career step, whether an internship or a job.
To pass the course, you need to gain a minimum number of points within a few months. You can decide if you want to reflect on your interests and motivations, develop knowledge of the job market, receive peer feedback on application materials, learn to love networking, or attend an interactive alumni career panel or workshop.
See this page for more details.
This course is overseen and guided by Dr Maciej Szymanowski and Lisanne Keir
Electives
All electives are listed below:
Assurance Services
Financial statements are an important source of information for stakeholders like shareholders, creditors, employees, the general public etc., to value their prospective claims. Over time, accounting scandals like Enron, Worldcom, AIG and Lehman Brothers have indicated that managers have incentives to use their discretion to affect financial reporting in order to serve their own benefits. Thus, to reassure stakeholders and restore and strengthen their confidence in financial statements, regulators require firms to have their financial statements assured by third parties, namely auditors or certified public accountants (CPAs). CPAs are the equivalent to Dutch register accountants. This course addresses the function and relevance of auditors in more detail and considers the decisions and dilemmas that auditors are faced with as part of their job.
Taught by Dr C. Pietsch and S. Stirnkorb, MSc.
Controllership
The role of the financial controller is changing in ways that mirror those of the broader finance function. Rather than serving as a rear-view mirror that only provides information about historical performance, the financial controller increasingly participate in the analysis and formulation of solutions to higher value-added, strategic issues. Reliance on forward-looking techniques tools allows the finance function to anticipate the future needs of the company to drive appropriate action, improve the current operating results and eventually maximize the bottom line.
The dynamic and integrative role of the controller function in business corporations is the focus of this course. Classes cover the principles underlying planning and control decisions in functional and divisional organizations, as well the design and consequences of responsibility accounting and performance measurement systems under various market conditions. The course also extends to financial controller’s roles in budgeting, strategic planning, pricing, risk management, corporate finance and investment related decision making.
Taught by Dr F. Elsinger.
Algorithms in Accounting and Control
Sayings such as “To know your present you must know your past” abound. This is true for the field of accounting as well. As an example, the European Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act (2021), the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act (2022) raised the issue of auditing AI systems. Can the task of auditing financial statements inform the audit of AI systems? Understanding the historical developments of financial auditing and its extension to other fields such as environmental auditing could give us hints as to how the auditing profession might develop to audit the new technologies contained in the term AI.
Fundamentally, this course aims to prepare the modern accountant. It does so by giving students a sound foundation into the historical developments of the five main sub-domains of accounting (i.e., financial reporting, auditing, financial statement analysis, management accounting and accounting information systems), while exploring how each of the five sub-domains are affected by technological innovations and algorithms. In order to achieve its fundamental purpose, the course requires students to read influential and critical accounting papers and discuss them, and link fundamental accounting developments with the innovations introduced by algorithms.
Because the course is essentially about algorithms and the models used or produced by algorithms, the workshops focus on building algorithms using the standard approach of tidy modeling with R (Kuhn and Silge) and communicating about algorithms, models and results in a reproducible way via R markdown documents (Xie, Allaire and Grolemund).
Taught by Dr I. Sandu.
Taxation
Taxes affect many business decisions, such as: where to invest, what organizational form to choose, how to finance a business, when and where to recognize revenues and expenses. This is an introductory course providing you with an overview of what taxes exist, to which natural or legal persons they apply, how taxation affects business decisions, and what the fundamentals of domestic and international taxation are.
The course combines financial accounting, tax accounting, and investment principles to answer the question: How do I take tax-optimal business decisions? This knowledge is complemented by information about recent political developments in the area of taxation. The content from the lecture is applied and deepened during workshops. Guest lectures provide additional insights from practice.
The fundamentals in domestic and international taxation form basic knowledge of auditors, tax advisors, and practitioners in the accounting or tax departments of multinationals. Thus, the course is of interest to those contemplating careers in accounting, consulting, and corporate finance.
Taught by Dr S. Kohlhase.
M&A and Corporate Governance
Corporate takeovers are one of the most important corporate events. Furthermore, during the takeover process firms encounter several challenges, such as legal, cultural, and regulatory hurdles. Overall, the argument to take over another firm must be very compelling. However, takeovers intensify agency problems between the stakeholders, most importantly between the management and the shareholders. This course focuses on the role of corporate governance with special emphasis on the context of takeovers or mergers and acquisitions (M&A).
The goal of this course is to provide students with a general understanding of corporate governance mechanisms within the firm. It also highlights the importance of corporate governance in the context of M&As. Furthermore, the course combines theory, empirical evidence, and practitioners’ views on topics at the intersection of accounting, M&A, and corporate governance. Guest lectures throughout the course provide students with the unique opportunity to gain insights from and engage in discussions with specialists from the field.
After participating in this course we hope that you improve your decision making by recognizing that corporate governance plays a crucial part in takeover activities as well as in the functioning of the firm by reducing agency conflicts stemming from the separation of ownership and control.
Taught by Dr S. Vanhaverbeke.
Integrated Measurement and Reporting
Environmental and social questions such as climate change, biodiversity loss, resource scarcity, work safety, and inequality are pressing matters. That is why governments around the world have environmental, social, and governance (ESG) topics high on their political agenda. Addressing ESG matters requires joint efforts of societal actors such as governments, companies, and individuals resulting in reliable regulation as well as safe and pollution-free production.
Accounting with its subdisciplines traditionally communicates how the company’s management has used economic resources to company owners, managers, or the government. While this demonstrates accountability for financial resources, companies also have environmental and social impacts for which they are accountable. Thus, accounting has evolved and must further evolve to serve its purposes and requirements in a sustainable world.
This course will endow students with the knowledge of extant ESG accounting frameworks that are used to measure, plan, and report on ESG matters. The course will also provide students with both theoretical and practical tools to evaluate the quality of ESG disclosures and to assess key performance indicators. Moreover, the course discusses which ESG-risks and opportunities exist and how these develop from pre-financial into financial risk and opportunities. In-class workshops will engage students in the active discussion of both relevant scientific papers in the field and in the analysis of real-companies’ ESG reporting and performance. Specific emphasis will be put on the critical evaluation of the quality of the performance metrics applied, as well as on the impact that ESG performance can have on financial performance and risk.
By the end of the course, students will be familiar with the rapid development of ESG reporting that informs companies and their stakeholder groups about the environmental, social, and economic impacts of company activities. These skills enable students to advise companies on ESG matters either as an employee of an audit company or internally as a sustainability manager.
Taught by Dr. S. Kohlhase and Dr. A. Scimeca.
Behavioural Finance
Economic theory treats people as if they were making rational choices. Yet, in practice, investors and managers do not always make rational decisions. In fact, a lot of CEOs admit that major business decisions come “straight from the gut”. And such judgement about money and investment plans are often clouded by biases and emotions. In the course of Behavioral Finance, we investigate how these behavioral biases impact our financial decisions, and how we can avoid the most common pitfalls.
Behavioral finance is the application of psychology to financial behavior of practitioners. It has gained prominence in academia. Daniel Kahneman and Richard Thaler were awarded the 2002 and 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics respectively for their contributions in the field. It is also appreciated by practitioners. Financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, ABN Amro, and Robeco all run funds employing behavioral strategies.
Taught by Dr L. He.
Management Control
Management Control is about influencing the behavior of managers to act in line with the organization’s strategic objectives. In this course, we discuss what alternatives organizations have for ensuring good control, and how organizations should choose among control system alternatives. The main emphasis throughout the course will be on financial results control systems, which provide the dominant form of control in the vast majority of organizations. Topics covered include responsibility structures, target setting (as part of organizations’ planning and budgeting processes), performance measurement and evaluation, and the assignment of various forms of organizational rewards (including performance-dependent compensation).
Illustrations based on real-world cases are discussed, demonstrating when particular control systems are effective, and when they lead to dysfunctional managerial behavior. Ample attention is also paid to the fit with the organizational context, such as the strategy, structure, and culture. The latter part of the course extends the key notions of management control from the intra-organizational level to the inter-organizational level, highlighting some of the issues involved in the control of new collaborative settings and configurations, such as joint-ventures and various types of alliances, often involving global alliance partners.
Overall, this course is intended to broaden and deepen your conceptual and technical understanding of accounting as it is used for management control purposes. It will help you learn to make business decisions, evaluate organizational performance, or evaluate others (and/or be evaluated) through the use of financial and nonfinancial information. These are essential skills for your future career, be it in the position of managers, management consultants, or specialists in staff functions such as controllers, auditors, or human resource specialists.
Taught by Dr E. Reusen.
Research Methods & Thesis

Accounting and financial management research skills
The course consists of eight core sessions, that combine the following three elements:
Econometric theory, paper discussions, and applied econometrics using R (most importantly in-class paper replications). In the ninth session, previously assigned groups present the results of a paper replication.
Presentations, interactive discussions, and applying econometrics via replicating state-of-the-art research papers are the main teaching methods used in this course.
I expect students to be prepared to perform statistical analysis during the lectures (including the first lecture), in other words, to get the most out of the course, students should bring a laptop with a working version of R-studio installed and be able to perform basic data operations in R.
The software is free and can be obtained here: R-studio download
To refresh your knowledge about/familiarize yourself with R programing I suggest to have a look at the following free e-book: R for Data Science
Attendance is mandatory as follows: 8 out of 9 lectures.
Taught by Dr C.D. Peter.
AFM Honours Track
AFM Honours Course
The honours class in Accounting and Financial Management provides excellent students with a challenging extra-curricular course focusing on latest developments in research and practice. The best 20 students will be selected based on their grades in the four core courses to follow the honours class in the 3rd and 4th block of their master program. Although we aim to offer the course every academic year, given the extra-curricular nature of the course, we may not (be able to) guarantee that it will take place.
The course is taught by faculty of the Accounting and Control department and practitioners jointly. We will have four academic sessions covering the areas decision making, financial accounting, taxation and valuation. In addition, two guest speakers from large companies will share their experience with implementing external or internal requests for accountability. The guest lectures by practitioners will be prepared in class with cases and group discussions.
Participation is by invitation only.
Taught by Dr. E. Reusen.
Note regarding taking courses if you are not an RSM master student: RSM does not offer the possibility for non-RSM students (master or otherwise) to take RSM MSc courses outside of official exchange partnerships or other inter-faculty agreements. If you are interested in learning more about corporate social responsibility, sustainability, or business ethics, please refer to our Open Programmes section.
Learn more
Why this programme?
Factsheet
Internship
International exchange
Faculty
Career training
The aim of the course ‘Your Future Career’ is to prepare RSM students at an early stage in their master's for their careers.
The online modules will help you make crucial steps towards the most suitable career step, whether an internship or a job.
To pass the course, you need to gain a minimum number of points within a few months. You can decide if you want to reflect on your interests and motivations, develop knowledge of the job market, receive peer feedback on application materials, learn to love networking, or attend an interactive alumni career panel or workshop.
See this page for more details.
This course is overseen and guided by Dr Maciej Szymanowski and Lisanne Keir
Career Opportunities
Accounting & Financial Management graduates are specialists in the financial information needed by managers and investors; how it is gathered, secured, checked and used in the ‘nerve centres’ of economic organizations and markets. They therefore know best how to use financial and non-financial information to help managers make economically sound decisions. Such decisions range from motivating and evaluating employees, deciding on investments or mergers and acquisitions, to scrutinizing new business opportunities.
Accounting & Financial Management graduates generally start their careers in one of the following four functional areas:
- As an (external) auditor at one of the Big Four or medium-sized accounting firms
- As an (internal) auditor at a large multinational corporation
- As a finance manager and control specialist (i.e., financial controller, treasurer, business analyst) at a large multinational corporation
- As a financial or valuation advisor at a consulting firm or the Transaction Services department of the Big Four accounting firms
Many of our graduates advance into senior management positions such as partner in an accounting firm, financial director, or senior business controller at a large company. An Accounting & Financial Management degree gives you a great start on your way to becoming a Chief Financial Officer, a Chief Audit Executive or Senior Audit Partner!
Orientation year for Non-EEA graduates
Non-EEA nationals who have earned a diploma from a higher education institute in the Netherlands can apply for a special residence permit called the orientation year after completing their studies. The 'Orientation Year for Graduates Seeking Employment' is a residence permit aimed at retaining foreign talent for the Dutch labour market. During this orientation year you are free to work without a work permit. Participants who find a job during this period can change their orientation year into a residence permit for Highly Skilled Migrants under more favourable terms.
For the most up-to-date information please visit the following website.
Career progress
Find the Employment Factsheet for your MSc programme here.
View LinkedIn profiles of our graduates
You can read more about our graduates and their career progress from their LinkedIn profiles.
Tip: you can see more of our graduates’ profile information if you are not signed in to your LinkedIn account. Sign out of LinkedIn, then click the links.

Graduates of 2014 - 2017
2014
Benjamin van Spronsen
Jon van der Avoird
Dana Ion
Michal Borawski
Theofanis Vasileiadis
Laurens Reijmerink
Maarten Bakker
Stefanie Pruys
Veselin Kamenov
2015
Eva Assmann
Laura Beemer
Suzanne Bouman
Daan Evans
Joel van Gilst
Larissa van Lieshout
Christiaan Portengen
Fabian Schoenfeldt
Gabor Ulrich
Harry van Vliet
Jord van der Weerd
Lisa van der Wereld
2016
Anna Belyaeva
Vincent Blaak
Kavish Gharbharan
Fenna den Haan
Lujia Li
Cindy Nijssen
Kevin Schaap
Arrie Vis
Vanessa de Vries
Jessie van Weelde
Zhou Yuchen
Brian Zimmerman
2017
Arsalan Ahmed
Louise Boom
Benedict Boos
Shlomi Hiskiyahu
Tim Kowalke
Good to know
Career Centre
Alumni networks
MSc employment report
Career map
Vacancies for AFM students
Studying at RSM
The RSM Experience
Education for life
Studying at RSM will be a life-changing experience. Your master degree will prepare you for a fulfilling professional life as a capable, self-assured individual. It will make you valuable to business and attractive to employers because it teaches you skills that make the most of your innovative mind. You will be challenged in and outside of the classroom, and you will gain an education based on the latest developments in business. Your master degree from RSM will include RSM’s promise of life-long learning, and membership of the more than 40,000-strong alumni network that is present in more than 110 countries which hosts activities and events all over the world.
Open intellectual culture
Your education at RSM is valuable. You will learn from academics who produce the highest quality research and the most innovative management thinking. In the classroom, sharing and questioning opinions is encouraged – yours and those of your fellow students, as well as the professors’. Many of RSM’s faculty members are young and passionate professors and researchers with outstanding academic credentials. Their work is published in top international management journals.
Engaging environment
Professors’ doors are always open for students who have questions, projects or ideas. Depending on the study programme, students have different opportunities to tailor their programme. This can, for example, take the form of a minors course, an internship, an exchange at one of over 160 partner schools worldwide, elective choices, the participation in a consulting project with a company or public sector organisation, or a thesis project in their specific area of interest. RSM’s strong links with local and international businesses and organisations offer opportunities for practical projects and real-life collaborations.
What is your ‘I WILL’?
RSM’s I WILL movement allows you to define your goals, your ambition, your drive. It’s our forward-thinking community that asks you to say something about your future. Your I WILL statement becomes part of the spirit of RSM’s diverse community of students, researchers, staff, professors, alumni and others related to the school. Making a public commitment to your goal will allow you to achieve it faster and better. What is your goal?
Rotterdam, a future-oriented city
Living and studying in Rotterdam has never been better. Rotterdam is home to one of the largest and busiest ports in the world and many multinational companies have their headquarters here. The city is famous for its stunning modern architecture, such as the Centraal Station or its covered food market, the Markthal. At the same time, the city authorities are forward-thinking in improving its liveability. There’s no shortage of restaurants, museums and theatres, yet Rotterdam is still an extremely student-friendly city with plenty of affordable student housing, and a bustling nightlife that includes events organised by students associations.
Find out more about life in the city of Rotterdam.
More information
AFM Master Study Club
Explore the campus
Life in the city
Coming from abroad
Fees & Scholarships
The combination of affordable tuition fees and living costs together with quality education and an excellent global reputation make a Masters degree at RSM a clever investment.
Tuition fees
The 2023-2024 tuition fee for the MSc programmes is approximately €21,500 for non-EEA students. The Dutch government contributes towards this cost for students who hold a nationality from a country belonging to the European Economic Area(EEA). These students therefore only pay the statutory fee of €2,314 in 2023/2024.
For EEA nationals who have already completed a master in the Netherlands (and obtained the diploma) the tuition fee for a 2nd master is approximately €12,600.
The MSc International Management - CEMS (18 months) is a longer programme, for which the tuition fee will have to be paid for the duration of the programme. The expected tuition fee for the 18-month MSc International Management - CEMS programme is approximately €32,250 for non-EEA students and is approximately €3,471 for EEA students in 2023/2024.
Please note that all these tuition fee tariffs are subject to change.
Scholarships
The number of scholarships is limited and mainly merit based. If a scholarship covers only the tuition fees, be aware that you need to finance your own living expenses (rent, food and insurances) for the duration of your studies. RSM does not offer scholarships for the pre-master programme. We do however offer a maximum of 2 scholarships per academic year to RSM pre-master students enrolling in an MSc programme.
Scholarships offered by RSM
Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) offers multiple scholarships to prospective students from non-EEA countries who are not entitled to pay the EEA tuition fee, provided their grades are considered ‘excellent’. RSM also offers one scholarship, the Erasmus Trustfonds Scholarship, to students from EEA countries.
Other scholarships
Besides scholarships awarded by RSM, there are also scholarships awarded by the Dutch government or other organisations that are available if you meet certain criteria such as nationality, age, etc We have listed some of them below but we encourage you to use resources such as Grantfinder or the Scholarship Portal to find additional scholarships.
- StuNed
- G&D Europe Scholarship
- NN Future Matters Scholarship
- Russia: The Global Education Programme
- LPDP
- OKP
Scholarship tips
- Contact the Ministry for Higher Education in your home country to see whether there are scholarship options.
- We have virtual information session covering all you need to know about scholarships and financial aid. Watch it here.
Student loan options
For students from the Netherlands or the EU/EEA, it may be possible to apply for limited funding towards payment of your tuition fees. Find out whether you meet the nationality and age requirements and read more information about the application process here.
Master Application Handling fee
After having filled in all of the necessary application information on the Online Application Form (OLAF) and uploaded the required documents, applicants with a degree obtained outside the Netherlands will be asked to pay a non-refundable €100 handling fee. This fee can be paid online via the Erasmus Payment System which uses either iDEAL (for those with a Dutch bank account) or PayPal (which can be linked to any bank account or credit card worldwide). It is important that applicants complete the payment process as indicated, otherwise the system cannot register the payment.
Additional programme related expenses
The additional expenses in addition to tuition and general living costs (see below) vary per programme and may include:
- Study materials such as books, readers and business cases
- Costs involved in kick-off meetings
- Costs related to travel, international excursions and compulsory exchange semesters or internships abroad
Living expenses
For a reasonable standard of living in the Netherlands, you should have an income of between €1,000-€1,600 per month depending on your lifestyle. Further information about the costs of living in the Netherlands and related subjects can be found on this website. Below is an example of monthly expenditures:
Example of monthly expenditures
Furnished accommodation, including gas and electricity | € 500-900 |
Medical insurance | € 50 |
Telephone/internet | € 15-25 |
Food | € 200 - 300 |
Books, recreation, clothing | € 200 - 300 |
Public Transportation | € 50 |
Total | € average 1000 - 1625 |
Other potential expenses: | |
Buying or renting a bike | € 100 - 250 (for the full 3 years) |
In private residence (not student housing) yearly municipal and water taxes | € 100 - 300 (per year) |
Study and work - part-time jobs
Please ensure, prior to your arrival at RSM, that you have or will have sufficient funding available to finance your stay at RSM. Finding a part-time job, may be an option, but can not be guaranteed. You should therefore not rely on finding other ways to supplement your income during your studies. For additional information on obtaining a part-time job, visit the website of the Nuffic.
For EEA students there are no formal restrictions in finding work in the Netherlands, but students with a lack of Dutch language skills will find it difficult to secure employment. Non-EEA students are subject to labour regulations, which makes the likelihood of obtaining a work permit very small. We therefore ask students not to rely on this possibility. We do not encourage students to combine studies with the heavy workload from a part-time job.
Admission & Application
Immigration
Immigration & visas
Find out everything you need to know about entry visas & residence permits for non-EU or EEA students at RSM.
Release date: October 2022
Housing
Housing
Finding housing in Rotterdam can be tricky. To help you in your search for housing, we have compiled some helpful resources.