ABSTRACT
During the past 10 years, the German higher education system has undergone a spate of reforms with the aim of enhancing its international competitiveness. To this end, institutions were gradually granted more autonomy in financial, organizational and staffing matters. They could select their students, and some Länder introduced tuition fees. Even though it is a federal system, the Federation and the Länder agreed on funding the Excellence Initiative, which broke the assumption that all universities were equal, and agreed on a federalism reform which allows competition between the 16 Länder regarding funding, students, researchers, pay scales and so forth. These developments and their impact will now be outlined.
