Tuition fee no barrier

Only 4 out of 16 German Bundesländer continue charging theirstudents tuition fees of between €750 and €1000 per year. The newGreen-Social Democrat government in Baden-Württemberg considersscrapping them following a country wide trend of returning to freeeducation.
Student numbers up
A recent
Fears that students would start moving to other Bundesländerwith free education had been refuted. There was also no change seenregarding the study program choice students made when startingtheir studies. The report therefore is not very useful orwelcome for the new regional government, who had promised inits electioncampaign to do away with tuition fees.
Insight for a not so united Kingdom
The “Monitoring-Beirat Studiengebühren” was created in 2006 justbefore the then conservative government introduced tuition fees inBaden-Württemberg. The area itself is one of Germany’s business andresearch hotspots featuring renowned institutes like HeidelbergUniversity.
Whether the results of the now published report can begeneralized is a point fo discussio. And debate on tuition fees isa European issue, not just in the netherlands where a fee-rise isintroduced for students who ‘overstay their welcome’inHE. Recently, England and Scotland too foughtover tuition fee policy. England had tripled its tuition feestriggering fears that Scottish universities would then be floodedwith English applicants. In response, the Scottish government
