Germany taz
Study costs for foreigners: short-sighted selection
More and more universities are charging international students horrendous fees. Even the most talented are likely to fall by the wayside. more...
Deutsch (original) ·Auto-translated to English
It already exists across the board in Baden-Württemberg, the Technical University of Munich introduced it two years ago and the LMU Munich, one of the largest German universities, now wants to follow suit: horrendous tuition fees for students who come from non-EU countries. Up to 10,000 euros per semester are being discussed. This means that most students from the global south will be excluded, as hardly anyone will be able to raise these sums.
Even doctoral students with a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service would no longer be able to do their doctorate at the LMU, because the DAAD expressly does not cover tuition fees. That's right, because the DAAD's job is to promote international scientific exchange and not to finance German universities. Unlike in Baden-Württemberg, Bavarian universities can decide for themselves whether to introduce such fees according to the Higher Education Act.
is a German ethnologist. He has held the chair for ethnology at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich since 2008.
The Bavarian state government is fine with this: when there are complaints about a lack of funding, it shifts the responsibility to the universities and says: “You charge fees!” A large part of the scientific excellence that is otherwise so highly valued would be lost. My international doctoral students could not have done their doctorate at LMU, neither a young Turk who had just been awarded a prize nor a Pakistani who now has a professorship in his home country.
The taz is an independent, left-wing and opinionated daily newspaper. We have been arguing in our comments, essays and debate texts since the taz was founded in 1979. We often cannot and do not want to agree on an opinion. That's why you'll find some completely opposing positions here - all part of the very broad left-wing spectrum of opinions.
The universities are therefore caught in a dilemma between sufficient funding and openness to international students. The general tuition fees introduced in Bavaria in 2007 were overturned by a referendum in 2013. The then Bavarian Prime Minister Horst Seehofer had insight and replaced the universities' fee income from the state budget. This regulation still applies today. One can only hope that Markus Söder will also come to an understanding regarding international student fees.