No More Free Education: Many Universities in Germany are Reintroducing Tuition Fees

Germany has been famous all around the world for quite some time now for offering free education at its universities. This has certainly caused a huge increase in the inflow of students from overseas countries towards this country, thus being a major contributing factor for the increase of population.

However, the south-west state of Baden-Wurttemberg in Germany, announced this week that they’re going to bring back the system of tuition fees for international students from outside the European Union (EU), starting from autumn 2017.

This move is also expected to affect students from Pakistan, and may well see fewer applications coming in from other countries as a result.

Details of the Fee Structure

They may be bringing back the system of tuition fee at the universities in Baden-Wurttemberg, but bear in mind that the fee requirement over there is still a lot less compared to a lot of other countries in the world.

Non-EU students, from the start of the 2017/2018 academic year, will be required to pay €1,500 ($1,600) per semester, which means a total of €3000 ($3,200) per year.

Students who opt for a second degree will pay a reduced fee of €650 ($700) per semester.

But don’t lose all hope, since there are still some exemptions in this case which apply to:

• Refugees with a right to stay in Germany
• International students who earned their higher education entrance qualification “Bildungsinlander” in Germany
• International students from Erasmus member states, including non-EU countries such as Iceland and Turkey
• Students from non-member countries with permanent resident status in Europe
• Existing non-EU students already undertaking degrees at the effected universities

List of the German Universities Affected

The state of Baden-Wurttemberg has a lot of major cities in it including Stuttgart, Karlsruhe and Heidelberg. The universities which are affected by this fee system are:

• Universität Freiburg
• Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg (University of Heidelberg)
• KIT, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie
• Universität Konstanz
• Universität Mannheim
• Universität Stuttgart
• Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
• Universität Ulm

The Reason behind the Reintroduction of the Fee System

The main reason as to why the universities have brought back this system is because they need to cover their operational cost.

The country currently has a €48 ($51) higher education funding gap, and for this reason, the higher education ministry is no longer able to provide free education for all students.

A spokeswoman from the University of Konstanz said

“While the Baden-Wurttemberg Ministry of Education and Research has to do its part in reducing costs, it also wants to avoid drastically damaging the reputation and growth of science and research at state universities along with their high student numbers”.

What about other Universities?

It would be right to expect the same for other universities in Germany doing so for the same reason, to reduce the higher education funding deficit, unless the fee policy is overturned by protesting students or by other political reasons.

Not only is it Germany that is affected,  but other countries who are affected by this funding gap problem as well and have reintroduced the tuition fee system again. These countries include Denmark and Sweden, and it is highly likely that other countries are going to follow in as well.

This is definitely terrible news for a lot of Pakistani students since a lot of them these days go abroad for education.

Via TopUniversities