Last German state to do away with university tuition fees

The Times
September 23, 2014 7:00AM


ALL GERMAN universities will be free of charge when term starts next
week after fees were abandoned in Lower Saxony, the last of seven states
to charge.

“Tuition fees are socially unjust,” said Dorothee Stapelfeldt, senator
for science in Hamburg, which scrapped charges in 2012.

“They particularly discourage young people who do not have a traditional
academic family background from taking up studies. It is a core task of
politics to ensure that young women and men can study with a high
quality standard free of charge in Germany.”

The experiment with tuition fees, which began in 2006, was overturned by
democratic pressure against the conservative-led state governments, all
in the west of Germany, which decided to charge euros 1,000 ($A1436) a year.

They were able to do so after a constitutional court ruling that
moderate fees combined with loans did not contradict the country’s
commitment to universal higher education.

Within eight years, all the states have changed their minds, with Lower
Saxony the last to give way after the defeat of its Christian Democrat
rulers last year. It means that this autumn’s student intake will enjoy
free university courses.

“We got rid of tuition fees because we do not want higher education
which depends on the wealth of the parents,” said Gabriele
Heinen-Kljajic of the Green party, the minister for science and culture
in Lower Saxony.

Under Germany’s federal system, state governments run education policy.

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Under the U.S. system, students incur tens of thousands of dollars in debt.