The controversy on student finance for the children of cross-border workers reached a new stage after a court ruled on a similar case in the Netherlands.

Luxembourg has recently come under fire for offering student support only to students who are resident in the Grand Duchy.

However, after the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in favour of the residency clause for a similar case in the Netherlands, Luxembourg's position appears to have been reinforced.

Higher Education minister François Biltgen said: “For the first time, the residency clause for obtaining student financial support for higher education has been recognised as a principle by the European Court of Justice.”

The Court ruled in case C-542/09, the Commission vs the Kingdom of the Netherlands, that a residence clause for awarding financial aid was appropriate in order to achieve student mobility.

In the Netherlands, the law states that a person must have been resident for three out of six years and be aged under 29 in order to benefit from the support. Luxembourg, however, does not have such a rule and offers financial support to resident students regardless of age.

A press release from the Higher Education ministry said that to “increase the number of beneficiaries beyond the residents would be an unreasonable burden on the state budget that would more than double,” it said.

Furthermore, it said that the aim was now to increase the number of graduates from within the Grand Duchy to support the development of the economy.

It said that the country needed 50 percent more native graduates in order to ensure its sustainability and stop its dependency on importing qualified staff.