Persuasive Essay on Why Tuition Fees Will Not Improve the German University System

Universität Trier, Fachbereich II – Anglistik
Sprachpraktische Übung: Written Forms of Communication II
SS 2006, 2. Fachsemester

Persuasive Essay on Why Tuition Fees Will Not Improve
the German University System

by: Sebastian Dregger

Table of Content

I. Introduction

II. Thesis statement and outline

III. Body

A. Charging tuition fees – and cutting public expenses for universities at the same time
B. Instead of tuition fees – there is a tax-based alternative to raise university budgets
C. Tuition-based curricula – a severe restriction of academic freedom
D. Charging tuition fees – a dangerous precedent towards a plutocratic fee-society

IV. Conclusion

I. Introduction

Are tuition fees really the only way to improve the German university system? According to German politicians, this seems to be the case. They argue that only tuition fees can increase the financial resources of the bad-equipped German universities and that a tuition-based university system would force students to study more efficiently and to graduate much faster from college than they do today.

II. Thesis statement and outline

However, knowing the German university system from my own experience, I am not convinced that charging tuition fees is the right way to improve one’s studying conditions. Therefore I will argue that tuition fees won’t improve the financial budget of universities; that there is – contrary to what the supporters of tuition fees say – a tax-based alternative to raise the budget of the universities; that a more stringent curriculum means a severe restriction of academic freedom, and that, last but not least, the introduction of tuition fees would set a very alarming precedent towards a plutocratic fee-society in which many democratic rights are limited to only those people who are able to pay for them.

III. Body

A. Charging tuition fees – and cutting public expenses for universities at the same time

At first glance, it seems quite convincing that tuition fees would raise the university’s budget. But this argument ignores the bad situation the German state budgets are in: they are badly indebted so that each government – no matter whether is a conservative or liberal one – tries everything to cut public expenses. This implies that the budgetary surplus, resulting from tuition fees, will go hand in hand with a drastic reduction of state grants in the university sector, and in the end German universities will not have more money than today – despite tuition fees.

B. Instead of tuition fees – there is a tax-based alternative to raise university budgets

What supporters of tuition fees constantly ignore is that there is a better way of financing universities than through tuition fees: namely by taxes. So, why is that one percent of Germany’s Value Added Tax not used to increase the budget of the universities? Such a tax- based financing has two major advantages when comparing it to a tuition fee-based financing: First, taxes are paid by all people whereas fees are only paid by a small group of people, the students; and when financing the university sector with a common tax, this implies that all people have potential access to a university, whereas financing universities by mere student tuition fees implies that only those paying the fee have legitimate access to higher education with the consequence that in future poorer people will be excluded from the German university system.

Second, as taxes are collected by percentages, they regard the different financial power of poor, average and rich people because 1% of 1000 Euros is much less than 1% of 100,000 Euros so that the person only possessing 1000 Euros has to pay much less money in taxes. Tuition fees, however, totally disregard one’s personal financial situation: The obligation to pay 500 Euros per semester has to be paid by every student – no matter whether his/her parents are millionaires or dishwashers.

C. Tuition-based curricula – a severe restriction of academic freedom

[...]