Learning German

Currently, a good two million students are studying and conducting research at some 350 public and private universities in Germany. Nearly ten percent of them are known in German as “Bildungsausländer” – students who did not do their schooling in Germany. In the European Higher Education Area, with its staggered courses for bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees, the range of teaching and research programmes on offer is becoming more international all the time.

The German university landscape is highly diverse, comprising around sixty academies of art and music, many of them world-renowned, roughly 120 universities – some very traditional institutions amongst them – plus at least 160 Fachhochschulen (FH for short), or universities of applied science, which have become established over the past thirty years or so.

The difference between the two latter types of institution is that the courses offered by an FH focus right from the outset on practical application of knowledge, while students at conventional universities are required to concentrate more deeply on the theoretical principles. Fachhochschulen, as a rule, specialize in particular areas, e.g. business or technology, or offer special programmes for educators and social workers, while universities take a much broader approach – offering in some cases a range of subjects which quite literally extends from A for astronomy to Z for zoology. The overall majority of students are women.

State and private

The great majority of German universities have traditionally been maintained by the state – that is to say, by the federal state in which the educational institute is located – and this continues to be the case today. Promotion of research is largely organized on a competitive basis, the German Research Foundation (DFG) – the self-governing body for universities – playing the key role in this context. It receives flat funding of more than a billion euros a year from the German government.

Since the middle of the previous decade, Germany’s federal and state governments have additionally been supporting specific top-class universities with billions within the framework of joint “excellence initiatives”. In addition, there are increasingly also thematic competitions run in individual federal states, for example to promote new technologies. Also very much in line with this competitive spirit is the fact that global steering of the individual university or FH lies in the hands of its “university council” made up of members from science, business and politics.

Nearly a quarter of universities are private but state-recognized. Typically, private universities are Fachhochschulen specializing in teaching and training, and more recently also offering continuing education programmes for professionals. Only few of the private institutions have equal status to universities. Nearly half are run by the main Christian churches, offering courses in social professions, for instance.

To date, around 100,000 students, a mere five percent of the total, enrol at non-state universities. This is hardly surprising given that many of these charge high course fees, some as much as tens of thousands of euros per year. By contrast, state institutions charge no more than five hundred euros per semester, and even then only in a handful of Germany’s federal states.

New: bachelor’s and master’s degrees

A major challenge for all German universities is the academic reform and the introduction of the international bachelor’s and master’s degrees. The member states of the European Union (and its neighbours) agreed on this reform back in 1999 with a view to creating a European Higher Education Area. It still remains largely unclear, however, how many bachelor’s degree graduates should be allowed to pursue a master’s degree course: everyone should, say some universities in Germany, while others claim that only one in three should be permitted to do so. On a purely practical level, the question is currently being addressed by “target agreements” between the individual university and the ministry responsible.

For virtually all degree courses, local restrictions on admission apply (numerus clausus), favouring those candidates with the highest school marks or best first degrees. Students often complain (vociferously) about the workload in the new degree courses and about the continuous assessments and tests. Foreign students interested in enrolling at a German university can take a voluntary aptitude test offered by the German Academic Exchange Service (www.testAS.de).

Today, nearly four out of every ten students each year graduate with one of the staggered degrees – a good thirty percent with a bachelor’s degree and seven percent with a master’s. Unlike Germany’s traditional diploma degrees, there is no longer any difference in title according to whether the degree was attained at a university or a Fachhochschule. The old-style degree programmes, leading for example to a “Magister” degree, are largely on their way out. Nonetheless, the innovative approach is coming “unstuck” when it comes to a number of subjects which traditionally lead to a state examination, such as in medicine, law or teacher training. Professional associations in particular fear that the bachelor’s degree, being a “subprime qualification”, could have a detrimental effect on the way professions in the healthcare or legal sectors are viewed.

Student grants

Any student who does not receive above-average financial support from his or her family living (and working) in Germany is entitled to “federal education and training assistance”, making it unnecessary for them to pursue gainful employment while at university. Only university applicants coming directly from abroad are not entitled to this support. The state assistance, which is made available partly in the form of a loan and partly in the form of a grant, extends well into the middle classes. Furthermore, official student unions at every university make sure that all students have access to inexpensive accommodation, food and health insurance cover.

In addition, legally prescribed or independent associations of university students are actively involved in the self-governance of their alma mater – with high levels of motivation and in some cases with very lively dedication.