Thread by @BonoboPhilipp

In the wake of #IchBinHanna, here's my pessimistic take on higher education. I have gone through it as an undergrad and grad student for 3 years each, worked on a PhD for 1.5 years, and now have teaching duty as permanent administrative staff. These are my personal views. 1/7

The university system in Germany has a perverse incentive structure for all involved.

Let us start with the universities: They are supposed to successfully educate people and create new knowledge, but they get funding proportional to the number of students who get a diploma. 2/7

Professors are supposed to do novel research and pass on their knowledge, but they get prestige and funds for papers, regardless of relevance, in high-tier journals. If they focus on teaching, they get prestige for expanding the number of courses and students completing them. 3/7

Students are supposed to acquire deep knowledge in a field that interests them, but they get their diplomas for completing a couple of modules with at least a passing grade. For their careers, only the diploma matters, which is basically a signal that they learned something. 4/7

These incentives for unis, profs, and students create a "race to the bottom": Teaching quality suffers so as to hand out more diplomas and be more attractive with this higher completion rate, spending as little as possible. Grades are inflated and "everyone" is let pass. 5/7

Students, then, choose universities by completion rate. Few actively want to learn out of intrinsic motivation. They notice that little engagement is demanded of them and that not many resources are spent on them. Many just "give up" and just want their degree, nothing more. 6/7

There are certainly glowing counterexamples — students wanting to learn, profs spending time to create great courses, and universities rewarding them. But the system does not incentivize this. My many angles of observation over the years showed me that the system is breaking. 7/7