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AUTONOMOUS UNIVERSITIES: UNIVERSITY FUNDING IN GERMANY
© Klaus G. Troitzsch
University of Koblenz-Landau (Koblenz,, Germany) E-mail: kgt@uni-koblenz.de
Third SMOOTH Workshop, Tambov, 17-20/10/2006
Summary
• German budget system
• University funding in Rhineland-Palatinate
o Staff allocation
o Other funds allocation
o Allocation of buildings and estates
• Faculty funding in the University of Koblenz-Landau
University funding in Rhineland-Palatinate
The budget of each university is decided by the state parliament which follows a certain set of rules to appropriate monies for staff, equipment and other costs.
Staff cost is appropriated according to a fictitious students’ demand.
Equipment and other cost is appropriated according to a complicated schedule also estimating a fictitious demand.
The German budget system
The German state budget system makes a clear distinction between staff costs and all other costs. Staff costs, calculated either in terms of job positions or, for academic staff, also in SWS (contact hours per semester week),
real estate and buildings, calculated in terms of sq.m. (the allocation of rooms scheme is not yet operable),
other costs, calculated in €.
So we have to make a distinction between three attribution systems: for staff, for buildings and sites, and for other costs.
Staff costs
Staff costs are attributed by the state budget in the form of “job positions” of different ranks. The costs of these positions are given as flat rates, making sure that [93.7% of] the sum of the salaries actually paid is covered by the sum of the flat rates. Salaries are actually paid by the central state administration, not by the individual administration bodies.
Recently, the university administration was allowed to exchange job positions into money and back to other job positions, which gives it a certain amount of freedom (unheard-of in the German budget system). Thus if there were three vacant professorships of the C3 class (at a value of, say,
85,000 € each), these could be swapped into five junior researcher positions (at a value of, say, € 51,000 each) — or the other way round.
Real estate and other costs
Real estates and buildings are owned by the central state administration, not by individual administration bodies. They are let to these bodies (including universities) at no price by the central state administration.
All other costs are attributed to the individual administration bodies (among them, the universities) in monetary form.
Staff allocation to universities
Staff allocation to universities in Rhineland-Palatinate works as follows:
A number of (different) staff positions (professors, researchers, lecturers, administrative staff etc.) was allocated to the individual universities by the state budget, made up by the State Parliament, in the past.
From 1998 onwards, the demand of staff is calculated from the load a university has to bear.
The demand is compared to actual staff strength.
The difference between staff demand and staff strength is redistributed among the universities (but only one fifth of the difference per year).
Staff demand calculation Staff demand is estimated in a number of blocks (and, for academic demand, calculated in terms of SWS (weekly contact hours per semester):
• basic academic demand
• additional academic demand
• administrative demand
Basic academic demand
student dependent demand: (calculated separately for each study programme) number of students within the normal period of study, times the CNW (curricular norm value of the respective study programme), divided by the length of the normal period of study,
Note: CNW is in units of contact hours per week per student over the programme duration, taking into account that lectures are given to 100 students at a time, labs given to 30 students at a time, and so on.
addition for flexibility, plus 5 (Fachhochschule) or 10 % (Universität) of the former, compensation for sabbaticals, plus 7 (Fachhochschule) or 10 % (Universität) of the former, structural compensation for small disciplines in the humanities.
Calculating curricular coefficients CNW and curricular coefficients are calculated as in the following example (BSc programme in information management):
D = A/100 + B/30 + C
100 students are expected to take the same lecture course, 30 students are expected to take the same lab module.
The Department of Management, for instance, offers lecture modules up to an amount of 24 hours per week (summed up over the entire programme).
The supervisor is expected to spend the equivalent of 0.45 weekly hours during one semester for supervising a thesis while the student is expected to spend as much time for her thesis as for 10 weekly hours of lecture courses.
Department Lectures Labs Thesis CC
A B C
Management 24 18 0.84
Information Systems 17 9 0.47
Computer Science 10 8 0.3666
Thesis 0.45 0.45
Economics 10 0.1
Mathematics 4 2 0.1066
English Studies 8 0.2666
Total CNW 65 45 10 2.6
Additional academic demand research demand: 5 (Fachhochschule) or 2 SWS (Universität) per 50,000 € of third party funds per year plus some special additions for large targeted research projects, academic staff development: 3 SWS per each PhD and “Habilitation”, 18 SWS per graduate program,
reform of study, continued education: 12 SWS per reform project, 12 SWS per 50,000 € revenue from continued education, examinations: 0.1 SWS per final examination.
Allocation of rooms
The concept of management of real estate is under development, data collection has not been completed yet (although it was scheduled to start during the first months of 2001, the first data collection started only recently).
Allocation of funds for equipment and other costs to universities Before 1994, each university had its own budget calculated more or less arbitrarily by the Ministry of Education and decided by the State Parliament.
From 1994 onwards, a calculation scheme was introduced which takes student numbers, research projects and other sources of demand into account. The state budget, however, still allocates certain amounts of money to the individual university while it leaves approximately one seventh of all the higher education budget at the disposition of the Ministry of Education, which then uses the calculation scheme detailed below.
For 2005, 627 million € were apportioned to higher education in Rhineland-Palatinate, 547 million € were directly allocated to the individual universities while 80 million € were withheld in the Ministry's central fund.
Administrative demand
basic demand: (calculated separately for different faculties and/or institutes) number of scientific staff times a discipline-specific coefficient, additional demand: plus 75 %,
demand for the central administration of the universities, separately redistributed among universities, 50 % according to the number of scientific staff, 50% according to the number of students within their normal period of study, demand for special purposes.
Sources of demand
Basic demand: approximately € 2,000 per professor and € 1,000 per other academic staff members, additional demand for teaching: € 270 per student within his or her normal period of study and € 270 per final examination passed, additional demand for research: € 140 per € 1,000 of third party project funding, additional demand for staff development: € 1,000 per PhD and € 10,000 per “Habilitation”.
There is an additional redistribution according to the proportion of women among professors, other academic staff, and students (again within their normal period of study).
The difference between the immediate university budget and the demand thus calculated is apportioned to each university from the central funds. Insofar as the central funds is not emptied by this apportionment, the rest is used for project funding.
Faculty Funding within a university
Faculty Funding in the University of Koblenz-Landau
In the early nineties the Senate of the University of Koblenz-Landau adopted a model of apportioning funds for equipment and other costs (including student staff costs, but not academic and administrative staff costs), which takes the demands of the different faculties of the university into account.
As a result, each faculty is allocated two amounts of money: one for purchasing books and journals through the university library, and one for all other needs. Each faculty is free to distribute these two amounts among its institutes, and each institute is free to spend the other costs amount at its discretion.
Before 1990, there were different subheadings for different types of expenditures (travel costs, equipment, post and telephone, student staff etc.). Funds could be moved between these subheadings, but with considerable administrative overhead.
Still, accounting keeps records for these different types of expenditure, but university, faculties and departments have no individual ceilings for these subheadings.
The model
From the overall budget of the university for teaching and research, first an amount for central demands is deducted (approximately one fourth). Note that there is also a separate budget for the central administration of the university, which is not distributed among the faculties. Note further: as of 2005, this scheme was slightly changed]
The rest is allocated according to five sources of demand arising in each faculty: staff component (47 %): number of professors plus one half of the number of other academic staff, teaching component (20 %): number of students research component (8 %): amount of third party project funds institutional component (22 %): number of institutes
staff development component (3 %): number of PhD graduations and Habilitationen
Teaching component
Since most students at our university take courses from different faculties (e.g. a primary school teacher student will take courses from four different departments belonging to three different faculties), students are counted in terms of FTE (VZA, full-time equivalents).
Example: a student in the primary school teacher programme might take
• 28.8 % of his or her courses from German Studies (Humanities faculty),
• another 28.8 % from Mathematics (Sciences faculty),
• 13.6 % from Biology (also Sciences faculty),
• 6.1 % from Catholic Theology (Humanities faculty),
• 8.3 % from General Didactics, and
• 6.8 % each from Psychology and Pedagogics (all of these belonging to the Education faculty).
So he or she contributes 0.349 to the number of students of the Humanities faculty, 0.288 to the
number of students of the Science faculty, and so on.
Teaching component - continued
If this student has exceeded his or her normal period of study (Regelstudienzeit, here 6 semesters), his or her contribution is reduced to 85 %, after their 17th semester of study students contribute nothing.
The number of students is incremented by the number of successful examinations (also in FTE), so in the year of their final examination students count twice.
Examinations are counted with the weight 1.00 regardless whether they are passed within or beyond the normal period of study.
To take into account that in some disciplines more expensive equipment is needed to teach students, some disciplines are weighted with factors 1.75 (art, music, physical training, household) and
2.00 (sciences including mathematics, computer science, psychology).
Calculation
Example: Given the overall budget of the university for teaching and research is € 3,338,420 (as was the case in the 2003 budget year) and € 1,402,220 is deducted for central demands. Then 20 per cent of this amount (20 % of € 1,936,200, i.e. € 387,240) is allocated to the faculties for their teaching demands, according to the student and final examination numbers.
Let 1,340.9 weighted students belong to the Humanities faculty (out of 13,701.8 weighted students all over the university), then this faculty receives € 37,987 on account of its teaching component.
Accounting system
Accounting is only done by the central university administration. Faculties, departments and research projects receive statements of accounts every second month — on paper or PDF files! — which they then have to compare with their own records (which only some of the “richer” faculties and departments are keeping).
The central university administration implemented a new accounting system last year which will give faculties, departments and research projects electronic access to their accounts (but this still does not work...).
Accounting and other software is provided free of charges by a private law company founded by the ministries of education of the 16 federal states, the Hochschulinformationssystem GmbH (HIS, “University Information Systems Ltd”), but many universities have been using software of their own, especially for student information systems since early versions of the HIS software did not meet their needs (but recent versions do slightly better).
Поступила в редакцию 2 октября 2006 г.
