EUROSCOPE. We do need some free education

In the past month, the German higher education system has been in the global spotlight as it bucked the international trend of privatisation and heaping university costs on students.

Lower Saxony became the last German State to announce it would be abolishing tuition fees for the university, (domestic and international students included). It joins other states in the west of Germany, including Hamburg, Bavaria and Hesse in abolishing them.

Fees have been in place on and off in West Germany over the years since the 1970s. A Federal Constitutional Court decision in 2005 went in favour of a group of universities that argued the federal government had overstepped the mark.

This ended up overturning a national ban on tuition fees as long as the fees were capped (at 500 euros a term) and were accompanied by affordable loan options for students.

While seven States in West Germany brought in tuition fees (none in the east of Germany did, however), the process swiftly went into reverse in the face of a strong protest campaign against fees and as regional governments changed hands from the Conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of Chancellor Angela Merkel and its ally the Free Democratic Party (FDP) to the Social Democratic Party and Greens.

Last year, for example, Bavaria decided to phase out tuition fees after over a million people backed a public petition calling for fees to be scrapped (the petition passed the threshold needed for a referendum to be held, though the regional parliament chose to abolish tuition fees before it reached that stage).

After the election of the Social Democratic Party and the Greens in a coalition, it was only a matter of time that Lower Saxony scrapped fees too.

Germany joins other European states such as Denmark Sweden and Finland in providing free university education for domestic students.

The developments in Germany raise important questions about higher education globally, including about the inevitability of privatisation and reduced government support as governments across the world have raked in their spending in the wake of the global financial and economic crisis.

There are a few caveats, however: firstly the U-turn in Germany wasn’t the result of a new, grand, national vision or a changed perspective of social justice.

The fee reversals were determined by strong opposition (unions, student groups and others joined forces to press the case) and political shifts as the composition of regional governments — the determiners of education budgets and policy — moved from right to left.

The short time period over which fees were introduced has also meant that there is limited evidence on whether fees created major barriers for less advantaged students.

While one study by three academics in Hamburg and Berlin found that there was a sharp drop in the aspirations of young people particularly from the poorest backgrounds to go to university as a result of fees (no matter how low) other studies found little difference in enrolment between states that had introduced tuition fees and those that hadn’t during the period that fees were introduced.

At the same time it would be wrong to argue there are no lessons for the rest of the world: after all, for one of the more-prudently run economies, with a not insubstantial student population (around 2.4 million across just under 380 institutions) to provide free education all the way up to post-graduate level is no mean feat.

And they have gradually been increasing their international standing: five German universities made it into the top 100 Times newspaper’s World University Rankings for 2014-2015, a list dominated by the US, Britain and Canada.

How does Germany afford it? For one thing participation rates are certainly lower than many parts of the developed world: for example, participation in tertiary education is lower in the country than the rest of Europe (29 per cent of 25-64-year olds against 40 per cent in Finland, 41 per cent in the UK and 32 per cent in Spain, according to a 2014 report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).

While social class certainly plays a part (immigrant communities are also underrepresented at universities), it is partly the result of viable and respected alternatives.

Germany’s renowned apprenticeship system, while less popular than in the past, remains a popular option for young people — with its mix of classroom time and paid work over a three year period.

Of course there are challenges — universities have warned of a potential funding gap, arguing that the loss of funding from fees (these were automatically diverted to improving teaching standards) would lead to a drop in standards.

But the very fact that one of the world’s most reputed economies has gone back on tuition fees helps belie the view that the trudge towards ever higher student debts is inevitable.

It could also prove an economically canny move for the country — creating an even greater influx of talent from across the world to add to its aging workforce.

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