Yes the budget cuts are massive, for context (for people not in the Netherlands) the cuts amounts to about the total budget of 1-1.5 big dutch universities (the country has in total 20 universities). The police of course waited for the last moment to not let any organizing party any leeway to plan something else. The unions are completely pathetic, immediately rolled over.
An update on the dutch education protests (mentioned here by @[email protected] ): In the end student unions and the youth wings of the socialist party and the communist party said they would go anyway to the protest. The police (that yesterday said they couldn’t guarantee the safety) said today that they will facilitate the protest so there was no ban. The labor unions still asked people not to go. In the end around 3-4k people gathered (mostly students and some university employees), which I think was very good given the circumstances. Some universities decided to host local protest on campuses (but as far as I can tell those were small). The university staff and unions are calling for another protest on the 25th of November.
https://nos.nl/artikel/2544475-toch-studentenprotest-in-utrecht-ondanks-oproep-van-de-gemeente-om-weg-te-blijven