Earlier this year, I received an account summary from student finance reminding me of my outstanding debt of £33,000 (somewhere around €37,000) for the degree I finished in 2017. Having so far stubbornly avoided looking at my balance online, it was an unpleasant shock to the system.
All the more depressing, however, was the fact that the letter was posted to my flat in Germany; a country where I could have completed my bachelor’s completely debt-free.
The first time somebody told me that university was free in Germany, it took some convincing before I believed them. Although in parts of the U.K. such as Scotland, higher education is usually free to those living there, in England where I grew up tuition fees have risen year-on-year since 1998. I always thought of free tuition as a distant fantasy; a lost privilege of generations past.Â
Yet in Germany, students from home and abroad still reap the benefits of free undergraduate and master’s education, with only small administration fees, around €200 to €300 per year and often contributing to free public transport and other services, to pay out for each semester.
SEE ALSO: Foreign students in Germany: Why they come and if they plan to stay
Completing courses at their own pace
Instead of being rushed through an intense three years, which is usually the case in England, students at German universities are also able to complete courses at their own pace. And best of all, amid the marketization that has swept across so many other universities in the western world, Germany continues to hang on to education for education’s sake, rather than ruthlessly prioritizing its fiscal or vocational value.
Campus of the University of Mannheim in the state of Baden-Württemberg. Photo: DPA
Unlike in England, where mass student pushback against tuition fees has been largely unsuccessful in halting the price hikes, when a ban on tuition fees for public universities in Germany was lifted in 2005, protests and boycotting of newly-introduced fees saw them gradually scrapped again after their brief appearance.
Dr. Dieter Dohmen, Managing Director at FiBS (Research Institute for the Economics of Education and Social Affairs) explained to The Local that Germany’s commitment to free tuition “is a political one," calculated to “reduce economic and financial barriers to Higher Education as much as possible”.
Where as in England and the US, disadvantaged students might be put off or totally shut out from the best universities as a result of tuition fees, Germany’s universities are free to all who want to use them. Indeed, after tuition fees were scrapped in the country, the Ministry of Education and Research saw enrollment rise by a whopping 22%.
Not swamped with applications
It’s naive to suggest that the system is totally perfect, however, and there’s a reason why - in spite of more students enrolling this year than ever before - German universities aren’t everyone’s top choice.
Wim Weymans, a researcher with extensive experience in the field of higher education points out that one of the downsides of Germany’s models is that “the quality of teaching is arguably not as good in the U.S or the U.K., with student to professor ratio being less advantageous”.
This is perhaps one of the reasons why Germany still lags behind when it comes to worldwide university rankings, with the U.K.’s Oxford and Cambridge Universities and the USA’s MIT, Stanford and Harvard consistently lingering around the top of rankings.
On the 2018 QS World University Rankings, the first German university to appear is the Technical University of Munich, at number 64. It’s also been suggested that, in spite of low or no tuition fees, some students still struggle with the demands of living costs in more expensive German cities.
Banners marking 150 years 'of excellence' at the Technical University of Munich in April 2018. Photo: DPA
Yet, by and large, this possibility hasn’t dampened the enthusiasm of international students, with Germany topping a survey taken earlier this year which looked at the attractiveness of attending universities in different countries.
The high number of courses taught in English, low tuition fees and career prospects were all cited as reasons for Germany’s outstanding performance in the survey. Somewhat contradicting the notion that the quality of teaching at German universities is suffering as a result of the country’s higher education model, teaching scores in the survey actually trumped those of U.K. universities.
Avoiding the 'constant pressure of falling behind'
Roberta Huldisch, who is currently completing her masters in Berlin but studied her undergraduate degree in the U.K., sees both positives and negatives to the German model. The flexibility, she told The Local, “allows people to work alongside their studies, to take some time out to do an internship, go abroad or just deal with personal issues, without being under constant pressure of falling behind”.
It’s a system that’s proved attractive to foreign students, the numbers of whom have grown by 53% since 2009. Year on year, more of those numbers are made up by American and British students alike, with a 20% increase in enrollments from American students between 2013 and 2015. As a whole more foreign students are enrolling at German universities every year.
SEE ALSO: In graphs: Number of international students in Germany quickly growing
Yet at the same time, Roberta suggests that this does make it easier “for people to get lost in the system, because no one really notices if you're not going to seminars”.
The campus of the University of Jena in Thuringia. Photo: DPA
And though she suggests that German universities “have become more career-focused”, a “transactional” attitude towards education is something she believes is embedded into UK policy and discourse “to a far stronger degree” than in Germany.
It’s a sentiment that has been echoed by others like Brigitte Göbbels-Dreyling, deputy secretary general for the German Rectors' Conference, who suggested to Deutsche Welle that German discourse and policy still views higher education as “a public good, a way to train specialists that then benefit the public”, while the Anglo-Saxon world focuses on “individual benefits, such as better career prospects and a higher income”.
U.K. universities: pushing out students more quickly?
While German students take their time pouring over books, universities in England are debating the introduction of two-year degree courses to push students through the university mill as efficiently as possible, with little care given to the nurturing of intellectual development.
It’s worth noting, too, that the systems surrounding Germany’s higher education centres is also designed with the intellectual needs and wants of the population in mind. For years, students in the U.K. have been pushed incessantly towards university, leading to a massive over-saturation of graduates in the job market and in some cases, the declining quality of degree courses.
Germany, meanwhile, still has low numbers of students enrolling in higher education courses relative to the rest of Europe, with more enrolling in the country’s vocational education and training system.
“Even if some discussions in Germany suggest something else”, says Dr. Dohmen, “the VET-system is still the larger sector compared to universities." While many unsuitable candidates in England are pushed into universities greedy for profit, in Germany, students are given more careful and appropriate choices.
SEE ALSO: Why Germany remains 'best country for international students,' above UK and France
While Germany’s universities might not feature at the very top of standard world rankings, the country is certainly still home to world-class universities with excellent teaching and facilities that won’t leave students burdened with debt.
It’s a stark contrast to other models around the world - particularly in parts of the U.K and the U.S. - where universities have fallen prey to the pressures of profit making and marketization, losing sight of the real intellectual value of education in the process.
Germany’s free, accessible higher education meanwhile continues to proudly carry the torch for education as a worthwhile pursuit and a public good.
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