Miguel Villagran via Getty Images MUNICH, GERMANY - NOVEMBER 17: Students hold a poster reading 'Tuition fees survival of the richest' as they walk past the university of technology during a protest march on November 17, 2009 in Munich, Germany. Following massive protests this summer German students across the country return to the streets to demonstrate against the alleged failings of the educational system. (Photo by Miguel Villagran/Getty Images)

Attention Canadian students: How is your German?

If you’re tired of fretting about how to pay tuition as rates rise to record levels, you may want to consider making a move to Deutschland. Post-secondary tuition is now free across the country after fees were overturned in Lower Saxony, the last state still charging students, according to The Times of London.

“Tuition fees are socially unjust,” said Dorothee Stapelfeldt, President of the Hamburg Parliament, as quoted at The Times.

“They particularly discourage young people who do not have a traditional academic family background from taking up studies.”

The end of tuition fees in Germany — including those charged to foreigners — was lauded as an example for which to strive by the Canadian Federation of Students, which protests the country’s record levels of student debt that have now surpassed $15 billion. The CFS takes the position that education should be free.

“We are absolutely happy to see that Germany's failed experiment with tuition fees has come to an end,” said CFS national chairperson Jessica McCormick, in reference to the country’s 2006 decision to lift a ban on tuition fees. That decision has has now been fully reversed.

The movement to end tuition fees started in 2006, when state governments (who control education) decided to start charging a relatively modest 1,000 euros (C$1,409) a year after a constitutional court ruled fees did not violate the country’s commitment to universal post-secondary education. Slowly, with pressure from students, unions and professors, German states began to scrap tuition fees.

McCormick believes the German case is an example of the power of student organizing to pressure governments.

“Canada's federal government should look to Germany's system as an example of one of the best ways to ensure access to postsecondary education and ensure students are getting the training and skills they need to participate in the labour market.”

While German students were successfully lobbying for an end to the newly introduced fee system, Canadian students have seen more of the costs of education downloaded from taxpayers and onto them directly, with tuitions tripling over the past 20 years, according to a recent report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Undergrads now pay an average of $5,959 per school year, and the CCPA report projects that will rise to $7,755 over the next four years.

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