The thing is, the fees discussed in Germany ( ~1000€ / semester) are no where near covering the costs of a seat for one student. It's just a drop in the ocean,

The thing is, the fees discussed in Germany ( ~1000€ / semester) are no where near covering the costs of a seat for one student. It's just a drop in the ocean, so they might as well keep it free. And when tutition is free for Germans, it seems wierd and discriminatory to take fees from foreigners. I grew up in Germany, but don't have a German passport. Should I pay more? Where do you draw the line? I was studying when they introduced the tutition fees around 2006, and protested against them. We strongly had the impression that it was never about covering costs, but rather an "educating" measure: to teach students that education has a monetary value, and so that they view themselves as customers. In the US, people view their education usually as an investment on which they expect return (from this thread, "It makes absolute sense to go $250k in debt for an MIT or Harvard degree, makes less but still some sense for Tufts and Olin, and makes no sense at all for the rest."). Some people view it that way in Germany, too, but I think many others, like me, find that very strange. We study mainly whatever we are talented at, and what we enjoy. Financial considerations are made, but not the main driver. I believe certain people find that mindset threatening or wrong, and work(ed) actively against it. In Germany most notably neoliberal and center/conservative think tanks, like Bertelsmann foundation. These organisations lobbied for tutition fees, but also for the introduction of the Bachelor+Master system, which is much more schoolish and streamlined than the old Diplom/Magister system (which let you more freedom to study at your own pace and according to our interests). When I look at how the money from tutition fees was used, it didn't improve teaching at all (which was the stated goal), but we got fancy new desks and cashback for books (ridiculously). This reinforces my feeling that it was driven by ideology and not by necessity.