Under the hashtag #NoScienceNoFuture, universities and students present their demands to the country.
Keeping things as they are is no longer sufficient. Universities and colleges in Baden-Württemberg fear a noticeable loss of quality and a reduction in the number of university places if the state does not end the current underfunding. In fact, however, the Ministry of Finance is currently even calling for cuts in science and higher education. At the state press conference today, the rectors therefore sounded the alarm in unison. In the morning, the student body of the University of Hohenheim had already published a press release on the topic. The background to this is the ongoing negotiations on the new university financing agreement, which is due to come into force in 2021.
It is quiet on the Hohenheim campus. Many employees are on holiday or at conferences, and students use the lecture-free time for internships, family visits, jobs, or stays abroad. But the peace is deceptive. Negotiations on the future financing of universities are currently entering a critical phase. By the time lectures begin, important decisions may already have been made.
For the universities, a lot is at stake: the number of students has risen rapidly over the past 20 years. However, the state's expenditures have not kept pace. According to the rectors' calculations, universities receive 33 percent or 3,540 euros less (adjusted for inflation) per student from the state than in 1998.
So far, universities and colleges have coped with the increase in student numbers primarily with temporary programs and additional workloads. As a result, the framework conditions for students and research have steadily deteriorated and working conditions have become more difficult. At the same time, the forecasts of the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany predict that the demand for study places in Baden-Württemberg will remain high until 2030.
NoScienceNoFuture
Unter dem Hashtag #NoScienceNoFuture informieren Hochschulen und Studierende in Social Media Kanäle über ihre Forderungen.
The rectors do not consider the signals from the state in the current negotiations to be encouraging at all. In fact, the Ministry of Finance is currently even calling for further savings in science and higher education. At the state press conference, therefore, universities and colleges sounded the alarm today with rare unanimity.
"Without sufficient funding, savings must be made by reducing services by 2021 at the latest, and significant quality losses must then be accepted. This would also mean that a larger number of study places would have to be cut," according to a joint press release.
In order to close the gap in funding, the heads of the Rectors' Conferences are calling on the state to take the following measures:
- Increasing the basic budget of all universities by at least 1,000 euros per student and year, among other things to improve the mentoring ratios and ensure study quality, digitize research and teaching, improve infrastructure, and finance new tasks such as innovation, promotion of start-up culture, continuing education, transfer, internationalization.
- The transfer of the expansion programs into the basic budgets of the universities
- The annual dynamization of the budget by three percent to compensate for the general increase in costs, especially for personnel, which the non-university research institutes in the country have been receiving for years.
- A transparent and equitable transfer of all funds from the "Zukunftsvertrag Studium und Lehre" recently concluded between the Federal Government and the Länder to the universities in accordance with the agreed contractual criteria, without special deductions by the Länder.
- University autonomy in the use of funds to strengthen the universities in the further development of their range of courses and services relevant to society.
Prof. Dr. Bernhard Eitel, chairman of the State Rectors' Conference of the Universities, commented: "Baden-Württemberg must now set the course for the future. If one does not consistently invest in universities and colleges, this will have painful consequences for the state in the medium and long term. Although the state' s economy is currently strong, it can only remain so if it continues to innovate.
"Highly qualified graduates and research achievements are the key factors for mastering the upcoming structural changes. If state policy neglects this task, Baden-Württemberg will be on the receiving side of the state financial equalization system in twenty years' time," said Prof. Dr. Eitel.
The University President of Hohenheim, Prof. Dr. Stephan Dabbert, emphasized: "In spite of increasing demands on the quality of teaching, we receive a third less money per student from the state at universities than we did 20 years ago. This gap - which also affects univerisites of applied sciences in a similar way - must be closed step by step. Visible measures to achieve this are now necessary."
