Fees? Nein, danke

Last month students demonstrated yet again in Hamburg, telling all and sundry that "we are here, we are loud". It was one of several demonstrations in the city - and across the country - in the past six months. But these students are not very hopeful that they will be able to prevent the introduction of fees any longer. A majority of German students have now accepted that they will soon have to pay for university tuition like their British counterparts.

The highest German court, the constitutional court in Karlsruhe, decided in January that a law preventing the federal states (the Bundesländer) from charging tuition fees was unconstitutional. According to German law, education lies within the competence of the federal states, but because of rank and file pressure, the newly elected SPD government had passed the law in 2002 "in order to secure equal living standards in the whole country".

Immediately after the court decision, many federal states announced that they would introduce fees as soon as possible. In these regions, one academic term will cost €500 (£343). A German thinktank, the Institute for Economic Research (DIW), estimates that fees could soon rise to €2,500 (£1,715). The actual conditions of payment are still unclear, but many German politicians point to the Australian model, where students pay after they have graduated and their incomes have reached a certain level. State loans with low interest rates are to be available for students.

The predominant feeling among German students is confusion. Different federal states will introduce different systems of fees and loans, and some have even indicated that they plan to limit access to their universities for "foreign" students from other regions. There will be no common rules for financing universities and funding for students - no wonder students have a hard time finding their way through the chaotic "academic marketplace", with 16 federal states, hundreds of universities, and various institutions providing bursaries. To complicate matters even more, some subjects, such as law and medicine, will be more expensive than others.

Hamburg will be among the first to introduce fees, and some students are already trying to change to a university somewhere else in order to avoid paying. Marion Klamm, studying on a masters course in media and communications, is one of them. "I am already working in a bar four nights a week," she says. "I simply cannot afford another €500 a month." How about a loan, then? She shrugs: "Everyone knows that the German job market is tight at the moment. I don't want to end up with debts and unemployed in two years' time."

The court ruling was a defeat for the SPD education minister, Hildegard Buhlmann, who pushed for a ban on tuition fees. Buhlmann remains critical. "Every young person needs the chance of a high-quality education, irrespective of his or her parents' income," she said. Chancellor Gerhard Schröder also criticised the plans of the federal states. "We need more, not fewer students," he said last week. He called on the federal states to introduce "a socially equitable system".

Student activists take such comments with a grain of salt. "The government is trying to hug us to death," says Bernd Schmittinger, one of the organisers of the protest in Hamburg. Students have noticed that many SPD politicians have started to waver when it comes to the question of fees.

Declining state funding has left the German academy in a sorry state - lecturers and students complain that courses are overcrowded and that departments are badly equipped. The German Rectors' Conference (HRK) believes that universities are under-funded by €3bn a year. Virtually no one denies the need for change, if with different emphases. While some argue for more government grants to remove "social barriers", others want to use tuition fees to introduce "market mechanisms" into the academy. Critics point to Austria, where tuition fees were introduced three years ago, and where enrolment dropped by as much as 15% afterwards.

Almost all Germans agree that to have 36% of young people taking up a university course - the OECD average is 47% - is not enough. To stem the brain drain, and to stay competitive, German universities desperately need money coming in. But are tuition fees a good way to achieve this? Professors and their organisations are divided. Peter Gaethgens, the HRK president, welcomed the decision: "The prohibition of fees was a competitive disadvantage. We urgently need to improve the quality of teaching." But Kambiz Ghawami, head of the German section of the World University Service, believes that "in future money, not talent, will decide who can study in Germany". The share of international students in Germany is 10%. He fears that fees will deter international students, especially because there is no adequate system of bursaries.

There is also a growing fear among scholars that the fees will only compensate for declining state funds. Comparative international studies have found that virtually everywhere where tuition fees have been introduced, state funding per head later declined. Therefore, universities worry that the money will benefit only the strained budgets of the federal states. "We need to make sure that this money will not be used to fill holes in the budget," says Gaethgens.

But the organisational details of the distribution of tuition fees are of little interest to people like Klamm. She has calculated that, after five years of studying, she would end up with a debt of around €23,500 (£15,700). What will she do if she does not find a university place in another German state? "I guess I will either grudgingly shoulder the debt, or quit." Statistics show that two-thirds of all students have to work to finance their studies. In the German higher education system, students are more or less free to decide when to take their exams. Working students need more time to finish their courses, and enter their career later than others - something that Klamm thinks is unfair: "Education should be available to all, not be a privilege."