Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/72575 
Year of Publication: 
2013
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 4205
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
In January 2005 the German Supreme Court permitted the state governments to charge tuition fees. By exploiting the natural experiment, we examine how government ideology influenced the introduction of tuition fees. The results show that rightwing governments were active in introducing tuition fees. By contrast, leftwing governments strictly denied tuition fees. This pattern shows clear political alternatives in education policy across the German states: the political left classifies tuition fees as socially unjust; the political right believes that tuition fees are incentive compatible. By the end of 2014, however, there will be no tuition fees anymore: the political left won four state elections and abolished tuition fees. In Bavaria the rightwing government also decided to abolish tuition fees because it feared to become elected out of office by adhering to tuition fees. Electoral motives thus explain convergence in tuition fee policy.
Subjects: 
tuition fees
education policy
government ideology
partisan politics
JEL: 
D72
I22
I28
H75
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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