Germany's Constitutional Court has ruled that the federal ban on introducing tuition fees at universities, adopted two and a half years ago, infringes on the competencies of the federal states and therefore has no legal force. Now each region has the right to independently decide whether university education is paid, and if so, how much the student will have to pay for it.
It should be recalled that until now, only persons who already had one higher education degree or who did not meet the period stipulated by the curriculum, which is usually 10 semesters, were required to pay for studying at German universities. The same applied to foreigners. Therefore, domestic students, if they did not have a higher education diploma recognized by the ministry of education of one of the federal states, also studied in Germany for free. Now, for those who have chosen one of the universities in Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Hamburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt or Saarland, the situation will change: the authorities of these states intend to introduce fees in the near future. It is expected that it will be 500 euros per semester.
The Federal Constitutional Court of Germany believes that introducing fees for education will enable German universities to improve the quality of teaching – after all, students themselves constantly complain about overcrowded lecture halls and a lack of teachers. In addition, this should contribute to a more responsible attitude of students to their studies. At the same time, the court decision states that the federal states should ensure that people from poor families also have the opportunity to obtain higher education.
According to judge Winfried Hassemer, the court did not address the question of whether universal tuition fees for higher education are politically correct and whether they infringe the right to education. The court's jurisdiction was only to determine whether the federal authorities had the right to ban the introduction of these fees.
Opponents of introducing tuition fees fear that this will not only become another obstacle to education for young people from low-income families, but will also lead to a huge number of students flocking to universities in those states where education is still free. However, according to the court, tuition fees are just one of many factors by which an applicant chooses where to study, and 500 euros per semester is not such a large amount compared to the total amount a student needs to pay for housing and food. And if the quality of education at free universities becomes worse than at paid ones, each federal state must independently solve this problem.
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