SF: We never, if you see it in a historical perspective, we never had fees. We have always considered higher education as a public good and there were no tuition fees, and the movement to introduce tuition fees for German students is relatively new. So that was some 15 years back, the conservative party started it and it was very controversial. In the end, only half of our states succeeded to introduce it and then all of them did away with it after a number of years because it was so controversial.

“I think an overseas student in the Netherlands pays 11 times as much as a Dutch”

And nobody ever had the idea that we only introduce fees for overseas students; this is something Scandinavian countries and Holland did. They have very low fees, almost non-existent fees, but now Sweden, Denmark, Holland, they started to charge overseas students at very high rates. I think an overseas student in the Netherlands pays 11 times as much as a Dutch, so they have these differential fees. There was never a political discussion in Germany to actually do that.

The PIE: Why do you think that was?

SF: I think it was linked to cultural policy, afterward World War II, Germany wanted to make amends for the past and even reconnect with the rest of the world and cultural policy was a very important element in that. After that the perspective of helping developing countries came in, so we had these pathway colleges for developing countries where people could catch up some secondary schooling and then get into German universities for free and that was as part of development aid.

The PIE: Which countries were you aiming to help?

SF: Indonesia was an important partner, for example, and African countries. In the 50s and 60s, it was seen as part of development aid to do that, and then later on, I think we kind of saw it as part of our exports strategy and we tried to form linkages with other countries by training people here, and then we have important networks, which are useful for a foreign country.

“We saw that in order to compete and to attract international students, we had to offer a lot more in English”

We were not trying to sell higher education because I think this is very much linked to the fact that countries who have a market approach are mostly countries who have English as a language of teaching. It makes it a lot easier. But we saw that in order to compete and to attract international students, we had to offer a lot more in English, which we do now as I mentioned. Over 1,000 Bachelors and Masters programmes are now taught in English and doctorate work is always possible in English.

The PIE: Do you know how many of the students who come in to do a German language degree, do you know how many of them do a pathway foundation program in Germany first, or do they intend to learn German in their home country before they come? 

SF: First, it is according to which region they come from. From Central and Eastern Europe, a lot of them come with German [from school]. And in other parts of the world we have to teach them German when they come because in Indonesia, parts of Africa, Latin America, there are very few possibilities to learn German in the school system, so people come to Germany.

“We think it’s the ideal type of immigration, people who have been trained in German universities and have earned a German diploma”

This is also part of the rationale with these courses taught in English; we try to get them into the country and we try to attract some of them into the labour force for the country. Since there is a shortage of qualified manpower in STEM fields, especially in engineering, we try to win people. Because we think it’s the ideal type of immigration, people who have been trained in German universities and have earned a German diploma, in a position where they know the system, are much better green card holders than somebody who just arrives in the country and doesn’t know the culture.

The PIE: Do you think there could be a tipping point where you might have increasing numbers because your policy is so different to other EU countries, as you said. Do you think there might be a tipping point when you have so many international students trying to come? 

SF: Yes but we have got a demographic problem as well, it is sharper than in the UK, it is almost comparable to Japan. So in the last 4 semesters, or in the autumn semester, already 20% of our new students were international students, 20%. So the numbers are going up. It doesn’t reach a tipping point because from the point of view of demography, German universities will have decreasing intake from German students so they are actually interested in getting more students, keeping up the numbers, or else otherwise we will be closing several institutions.

This holds especially true for the eastern part of Germany. Until now we do not have a discussion to limit the numbers except for, as I mentioned, some fields like medicine and dentistry where study places are extremely expensive.

The PIE: Am I right in thinking that international students can also benefit from subsidised accommodation in Germany?

SF: Yes and subsidised university restaurants, subsidised health insurance, subsidised transport, cheap tickets. In many university towns, the local transportation ticket is included in the semester fee. If the semester fee is €200, then you get a free ticket.

“The study showed that 30% [of overseas students] staying means recovery of the cost to waive tuition fees, if these guys pay taxes”

The PIE: You mentioned in your speech that you believe you get financial reward anyway from the fact that students stay and work. So how many students stay and work in Germany, I believe it’s quite high. 

SF: We always thought that 30% of the non-EU students stayed and a recent study showed that up to 50% of non-EU students stay for some time. So we don’t know exactly how long they stay, it is very difficult to find out, but they stay for a number of years. That’s a very good figure because as I said [at the IHE Forum], the study done by PROGNOS AG in Basel, Switzerland showed that 30% [of overseas students] staying means recovery of the cost to waive tuition fees, if these guys pay taxes.

The PIE: What about the outbound priorities of DAAD, do you think you will get there in terms of encouraging 50% of German students to study abroad?

SF: This is much more difficult. One problem is that the economic situation is so good because we have noticed that people tend to do extra Masters degrees, etc. if they don’t get a job right away. So an engineering student considers an MBA – and an MBA frequently abroad – if they don’t get a job right away.  If an engineering student gets a job even before completion of their diploma, which is the case right now because they are so much in demand, people tend to take advantage of the labor market as it is and not do the extra training.

Our figures, DAAD figures, are more or less stable now for the German students going out, we’ll see. I think this goal 350,000 people, students to come to the country, incoming that is reachable and no problem, but 50% of the student population with some study and experience abroad is very ambitious because you have to see that we’ve also got a two-tier university system. We still have the polytechnics and universities and the polytechnics have different constituencies, frequently people are first generation students who do not come from academic backgrounds and they are, from what we see in our programmes, a bit more reluctant to go abroad.

The PIE: Already 35% of students in Germany go abroad for some period, that’s amazing, compared to the UK and the US. What countries do you feel have got a great internationalisation agenda, apart from Germany?

SF: That’s a good question, we do not just have a general campaign to go out and get students to go overseas. We also try to get students to certain regions of the world where they wouldn’t go all by themselves. So we have one, which is called A New Passage to India, which tries to introduce German students to India and to get more students to go to India.

Then we have one, Discover Africa, we have an Africa strategy because this is a totally underutilised continent, nobody goes there 1and we try to get more students to go to Africa and found more partnerships with Africa. Discover Africa is rather new and the India drive has been for six years or so.

The PIE: So going back to my question, which countries do you think do internationalisation on a national level well…

SF: Australia is close to 30% international students, the UK might have between 17- 18%, and the US, all the other world leaders have 4.5% international students, which is considering the size of the university system not a peak performance. We are around 11%, our closest competitor in non-English speakers of course is France, they are also around 12-13% international students.

“It is not by chance you have very low rates of study abroad in Canada, the US, UK and Australia”

They have a slightly different market because they are concentrating very much on their home colonies, so they have a lot of people from Arab countries and French speaking West Africa. Whereas we have a more diversified consistency, we don’t have any former colonies from all over the world, and we closely observe what the Scandinavian countries and Dutch are doing. They have come up with a lot of courses in English and I think they are doing a very good job in attracting international students.

By the way, I think as far as the outgoing market is concerned, native speakers of the world language are hampered by the fact that they speak English. It is not by chance you have very low rates of study abroad in Canada, the US, UK and Australia. Because people speak English at home, they have a tougher time, I think, adapting to other cultures than people who always have had to learn English and their own language.