Themenschwerpunkt: Studienförderung und Stipendienwesen an deutschen Universitäten von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart
Gastherausgeber: Matthias Asche / Stefan Gerber
Editorial
Matthias Asche / Stefan Gerber
Studienförderung und Stipendienwesen an deutschen Universitäten
Zu Konzeption und Fragestellungen
Seite 11–18
Abhandlungen
Stephanie Irrgang
Studienförderung und Stipendienwesen an deutschen Universitäten im Mittelalter
Seite 19–36
Abstract
The question how a medieval student covered the expensive study years has not yet been broadly or systematically explored. Identifying forms of university financing can be considered most urgent. Following the parameters of social status, parential ties, network and group affiliation, access to faculties, social and academic hierarchy, application of academic expertise, regional background and horizontal mobility the issue of financing can be categorized as follows: The historically oldest and original way of financing university studies in the middle ages was through church benefices. Church took care of the clericus by granting a prebend or a canonry. Clerical students from a religious order enjoyed a special form of financing as they were delegated to the theological faculties. However, the clerical status was generally in decline towards the 15th century. Financial support could also be received through scholarships set up by private persons, urban or territorial authorities or institutions. A third way of facing the financial challenges was to get hold of a place in a college or to enjoy a scholarship established by a college fund, though among medieval scholars this was proportionally not the most dominant solution. Apart from scholarships, prebends or collegiate life extra money was earned by teaching, by being involved in the job of scribing, by acting as a praeceptor or mentor, by family contributions or by rental income. The mixed financing still needs further investigation as well as the exact certainty, how a scholar himself evaluated his financial situation.
Matthias Asche
Studienförderung und Stipendienwesen an deutschen Universitäten in der Frühen Neuzeit
Seite 37–105
Abstract
The article illustrates various types and functions of financial support for students and of scholarships in the early modern period. Basing on the structures of the medieval ecclesiastical foundations, they developed long before educational policies started to become a distinguished sphere of the early modern state. The article tries to draw a rough typology from the vast amount of individual results that are scattered or have been remotely published. Roughly speaking premodern financial support was based on two pillars, a governmental-public and a private. Among the privately funded scholarships the special type of familial allowances (Familienstipendien) had been predominant since the later Middle Ages. These grants were given not on account of the financial need of the student but due to the student‘s kinship to the family or the extended family of the donor. The condition of granting these allowances was the principle of descent, as they aimed on the reproduction of the social elite. However, regarding the governmental-public scholarships that developed all-confessionally under the sign of the reformation and catholic reform period, the leading idea behind awarding them was the systematic production of a elite for the state and the church and thus the principle of achievement. This method of governmental care, which was predominant until the beginnings of the 19th century, was necessitated on the one hand by the needs of the early modern process of state formation, particularly by the transition of educational policies from ecclesiastical to governmental direction. On the other hand it resulted from the competition of confessional systems. A mixed type of grants were the scholarships abroad (Auslandsstipendien) that were funded by individuals or aldermen in favour of one or several universities for the benefit of students whose territories or towns of origin did not have universities of their own. In the early modern period the bulk of these grants were given to prospective pastors and teachers, who were not able to begin theological studies at home. Pithily expressed, in respect of phenomenons of mobility, the governmental-public scholarships promoted social mobility, whereas scholarships abroad fostered geographical mobility. Familial allowances (Familienstipendien), however, were rather elements of persistence.
Stefan Gerber
Studienförderung und Stipendienwesen an deutschen Universitäten im „langen“ 19. Jahrhundert
Seite 107–133
Abstract
The essay first critically examines the current widespread talk of an „economization“ of education and shows that expected returns have always been a central element of scholarships for undergraduate education. On this basis, the paradigms of aid, the talent and the elimination of social inequality are discussed as the motives of the sponsorship of students at German universities in the „long“ 19th Century and as the perspectives of research in this topic at the same time. Beyond the continued reflection of these paradigms still virulent, then the essay makes an argument, not only for further detailed studies on the history of scholarships in Germany in the 19th Century, but also for the integration of this research in an „integrated“ financial history of German universities and colleges dealing with public funding of universities and the fees and entitlements of all members of academic community as well.
Thomas Adam
Studienförderung und Stipendienwesen an deutschen Universitäten im 20. Jahrhundert
Seite 135–147
Abstract
This essay provides a survey of the scant literature on the topic of funding for undergraduate and graduate education in Germany over the course of the twentieth century. It highlights the paradigm shifts that occurred within higher education with regards to funding. Up until 1945, scholarships were provided largely by endowments which had been entrusted to the universities by private citizens. These endowments played a significant role in the smooth functioning of Germany‘s system of higher education. They were, however, not created to increase social mobility but to reproduce existing social elites. After World War II, these endowments were marginalized, expropriated, and nationalized in both East and West Germany. Private funding for university education was for political reasons replaced by state-run and state-funded systems in both German states. While West Germany focused on the development of state-funded and party-affiliated foundations such as the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation and subsidized student loan schemes, East Germany introduced an unparalleled and comprehensive scholarship system that for most of its existence privileged students with working-class background. The East German scholarship program was part of its attempt to create a new (socialist) elite. This scholarship program shared similar goals with the West German attempt to open universities to students with working-class background through Bafög and through scholarship programs from foundations such as the Hans-Böckler-Foundation.
Thomas Adam
Studienförderung an deutschen und amerikanischen Universitäten von 1800 bis 1945
Seite 149–172
Abstract
This essay argues that the German and American systems of funding for undergraduate education up until World War II were very similar. In both countries, universities possessed extensive endowments that provided scholarships to undergraduate students of high academic standing who were in need of financial support because they had fallen on hard times. The essay offers five levels of comparison. It provides statistical data about the extent of funding for undergraduate education in both countries and shows that German universities had much more financial resources than their American counterparts. The essay also compares the conditions imposed on endowments by their benefactors and concludes that German benefactors had much more concrete and discriminatory ideas about the purposes for which they provided funding. It further compares the involvement of the state in providing funds for undergraduate education and shows that the American state(s) were involved in funding higher education to a much higher degree that the German state(s). This larger state support in the United States was due to the land grant legislation. It further compares the discourses about the criteria for awarding scholarships (need and merit) and highlights the common problems with weighing both criteria in nineteenth-century class-conscious American and German society. The essay finally considers the investment of endowment capital in Germany and the United States. While it is here that the greatest legal differences occurred, it can be shown that the practice of investment in both cases grew increasingly similar over time.