Recently, the Austrian goverment has decided to waive tuition fees for most students from European Union (EU) if they are within a given time plan. Students from outside of the EU pay half of what they have paid so far.
Many newspapers reported now about a consequence of this action - Austria's universities are overrun by students, which compromizes the quality of the studies. Very controversial, Austrian universities have also shown to be attractive for students from Germany who did not get approved at universities in their home country.
Unfortunately, newspapers have concentrated on complaining about the situation for overrun studies (typically psychology or communication science). However, this is not the case in general. It is worth mentioning that the University of Klagenfurt offers a technical study on "Information Technology" in English language, where currently only a few number of students fill the lecture rooms.
Although the study is of high quality and the teacher-to-student ratio is excellent, the curriculum does not attract too many students, neither national nor international. A main reason therefore is, in my opinion, the lack of information about this possibility. I don't want to be pathetic, but I get the impression that newspapers always forget that the University of Klagenfurt even has a technical faculty. And it seems that journalists prefer articles that make noise about a problem and stir up old Austrian-German ressortiments rather than providing potential students the information how to avoid this problem by choosing a study that is not overrun...
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