A. Umland
Germany

WHICH UNIVERSITY SYSTEM IS BEST?:
A COMPARATIVE ASSESSMENT OF GERMANY, GREAT BRITAIN, AND THE USA

    This paper argues that a mixed system of private and state universities seems the best structure to secure dynamism, accessability, and efficiency of higher education insitutions in post-industrial societies.
    The paper is based on my experience of doing undergraduate studies in East Germany, and West Berlin, and post-graduate studies in Germany, at two universities in the UK, and in the USA.
    Whereas the university system of Germany is to a large degree state-operated, the British system combines some elements of private higher education with an also largely state-operated university system. In the United States a large system of state-operated universities coexists with an equally varied range of private colleges and universities.
    Proper competition between universities is still largely absent in Germany, does exist to some degree in Britain, and is a core-characteristic of the US university system. In Germany, some competition exists between university faculties, and recently various ranking lists have been introduced. More independence of the universities has been also introduced in recent partial reforms of the system. In Great Britain, a number of elite universities, and the division between classical universities and former polytechnical institutions structure the university system. However, as it is stands, this structure appears as somewhat petrified with a so-called "Oxbridge conspiracy" dominating not only the higher education system, but the British society at large.
    The United States would seem to provide the best structure for a university system. It combines a wide array of elite and research universities with a large range of good quality second rank universities (mostly operated by the States), a plethora of specialized colleges and institutes, and a high number of accessible low-level community colleges (also operated mostly by the States). Interestingly, some state-owned universities like the University of California Berkeley, Los Angeles and others), University of Michigan (esp. Ann Arbor) or University of Wisconsin (esp. Madison) compete successfully with Ivy League private universities like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or Columbia in terms of academic reputation and the quality of graduate (esp. doctoral) education.
    The funding of both, under- and post-graduate education is also less state-dominated than in Germany and Great Britain. A multiplicity of privately endowed faculty, university and foundation scholarships are available to students along with several governmental federal and State support schemes. The large variety of colleges, institutes, and universities offers course structures and degree programs for almost every need. Although differences in the quality of education do exist and the government does only to a limited degree interfere in that regard, certain standards are secured by the conditions of the liberalized market for higher education, i.e. rankings of reputation and quality of education.
    In sum, the mixed, open and liberalized university system of the United States would seem to be the most prospective model for the reform of a university system - especially in as large and varied a country as Russia. The heavy governmental interference into the everyday affairs of state-owned higher education institutions in Russia is unnecessary under the conditions of a sufficiently broad range of offers on the market. At least in large cities with a wide array of higher education institutions, competition will far better ensure high standards than bureaucratic tutelage. In fact, the sometimes ridiculous prescriptions of the Ministry of Education for state universities may impede the competetiveness of Russian state-universities. Instead of governmental interference, Russia would seem to need more horizontal cooperation of universities in order to create accreditation associations, elite university consortiums, or local university cooperation schemes.
    Such horizontal structures would better ensure high education standards than the will of Moscow bureaucrats.

¿ Umland A., 2000