Fiscal and political disputes hamper plans to develop elite universities
A long-anticipated and highly controversial plan to develop a group of elite universities in Germany -- a German “Ivy League” -- hit a snag last week when its formal announcement was delayed, in part because of lingering concerns among the federal and state governments about how the project would be financed and run.
The official announcement of the much-discussed program, a cornerstone of the governing Social Democratic Party’s efforts to improve the country’s higher-education system, had been expected to take place following a meeting of federal and state officials in Bonn. Instead, the officials decided to put off the announcement until their next conference, scheduled for November.
“Institutional funding comes from the Länder [states], and this is the source of their influence over university development,” said Christiane Ebel-Gabriel, secretary general of the German Rectors Conference, which represents the heads of all of Germany’s institutions of higher education. “Even though they fund the universities poorly, which is what we are always complaining about, they don’t want to give up any of this control.”
Another sticking point is where the federal government would find its share of the money for the program -- and specifically whether it would be taken from other programs.
Barbara Dufner, the spokeswoman for the federal education ministry, insisted that all the money the federal government puts into the program will be “on top of the normal budget” and that the decision to delay was made primarily at the behest of states governed by the opposition Christian Democratic Union. “There is really no good reason for putting off the decision,” she said.
The plan calls for universities across Germany to vie for elite designation -- and a share of $2.3-billion in funds over five years. Seventy-five percent of the money would come from the federal government, and the rest from the governments of Germany’s 16 states. The combined spending on higher education by the federal and state governments was $23-billion in 2002, the most recent figure available.
The Social Democratic Party first proposed creating a network of elite institutions in January, when it announced an ambitious project to improve higher education, research, and training. The left-of-center party, headed by Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, has made overhauling the country’s beleaguered education system a priority.
The first phase of the government’s plan would allow universities to submit research-based graduate schools and “clusters of excellence” for elite classification. A cluster would consist of a network of organizations, including research institutes, companies, and government agencies, with the university as a hub.
In 2002, for example, the Free University of Berlin started a security-and-antiterrorism cluster whose affiliates include the police, the army, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Universities were expected to begin submitting applications this year for the competition’s initial phase, with federal support to begin in 2006. Despite the delay, the program is still expected to begin in 2006, said Ms. Dufner.
Each graduate program that won the elite designation would receive $1.2-million annually in addition to its normal yearly budget. Each cluster would receive $9.9-million in additional annual funds. Thirty graduate schools and 20 clusters are expected to be awarded the special classification.
Universities with at least one elite graduate program and one elite cluster would be eligible to participate in the third tier of the program, in which the universities themselves could apply for the elite designation and an additional $30.8-million a year. Ten of Germany’s 320 higher-education institutions are expected to qualify for that award.
A jury of experts would evaluate the universities’ applications. The jury members have not been chosen, but Ms. Dufner said that they would be nominated by organizations such as the German Research Foundation and the German Science Council, a national advisory body on higher education.
Germany’s Constitution makes education the preserve of the states. The federal government shares financial responsibility only for education-related areas such as research and training -- the areas the new program would focus on.
Upsetting Egalitarian Ideals
Germany’s universities, once well regarded, have suffered in recent years from shrinking budgets and what critics see as excessive bureaucratic regulation. As elsewhere in Europe, most of the country’s universities are public institutions, and their employees are government workers protected by the same work guarantees as other civil servants.
Although financial support for the universities has increased as a whole, spending per student has dropped by 15 percent over the past two decades.
Last fall students across Germany took to the streets by the thousands to protest proposed cuts to university budgets and proposals by several state governments to begin imposing small tuition fees.
The German Supreme Court is expected to rule this fall on whether universities may charge tuition.
It was against that contentious backdrop that the federal government announced that its approach to solving the higher-education crisis included developing a group of elite universities. Details of how the goal of creating a German Ivy League was to be achieved were in short supply. It was not even clear whether the plan called for the creation of new universities or the transformation of existing ones -- and the initial proposal called for just five elite universities. But opposition was swift and plentiful.
The very notion of an elite category rankled many Germans. Chancellor Schröder weighed in by saying that he had no objection to the term “elite,” as long as it represented groups that had earned the designation through merit and achievement. But many Germans felt that the nation’s carefully fostered postwar egalitarian ideal was threatened.
Student representatives like Steffen Krach, a fourth-year political-science student at the Free University of Berlin and the vice president of Deutsches Studentenwerk, the national umbrella organization for the 61 local groups responsible for student accommodations, catering, and financial aid, were dismayed by the proposal.
“They began discussing this plan just as students were protesting and going on strike in Berlin and other cities,” said Mr. Krach. “In the states they’re cutting financial support for the universities, and the federal government in Berlin is planning such an elite concept. It was really insensitive. We say reform should start in other features -- for example, give more financial aid to students. Germany needs to focus on making higher education more accessible, not more elite.”
University presidents have welcomed the plan.
“We were very concerned initially that the criteria would be based on political decisions rather than on academic excellence,” said Ms. Ebel-Gabriel of the German Rectors Conference, who has been part of a working group to help shape the program. She is satisfied that her constituents’ concerns are being addressed.
Still, some academics say the government’s proposal is flawed.
“The first problem is the question of what is going to happen after five years,” said Dieter Lenzen, president of the Free University of Berlin. The five-year limit to the additional federal support means, for example, that no professors could be hired under its auspices, since in Germany professors are public employees hired for life.
“On the other hand,” said Mr. Lenzen, “this money can be used for the improvement and innovation of laboratories and libraries, where there has been a lack of money for several years.”
Mr. Lenzen is confident that his institution, which was founded in 1948 and rose quickly to prominence in the postwar era, has a good chance of gaining elite status. The Free University placed third, behind the Universities of Munich and of Heidelberg, in a recent national ranking and has been savvy in positioning itself abreast of what Mr. Lenzen called “megatrends in the globalization process” by establishing clusters in areas such as biotechnology, security, and antiterrorism.
http://chronicle.com Section: International Volume 50, Issue 45, Page A33