Germany earmarks funds to endow Ivy-like universities

The United States has its Harvard, England has Oxford and France has the Sorbonne, but Germany lacks a big-name international institution.

But maybe not for much longer, as Germany is embarking on an ambitious program that may elevate some of its institutions of higher learning to storied status and create a sort of German Ivy League.

The proposal by the German Ministry of Education and Research was approved by the last of the nation's 16 states last month, German embassy spokeswoman Martina Nibbeling-Wreissnig said. She added that while this does not make it a law, "it's something like a law."

The plan will allocate 1.9 billion Euros, about $2.26 billion, to the nation's universities over the next five years, Nibbeling-Wreissnig said. Seventy-five percent of the funding will come from the federal government, which is unusual in Germany, where universities are generally funded by the state in which they are located.

Nibbeling-Wreissnig said that the money will go to "enhance research in a highly competitive world" by increasing funding to graduate programs, targeting more specific areas of study for growth and development and encouraging departments performing similar research at different universities to coordinate their efforts.

Additionally, universities can apply to be one of 10 to receive an additional ?21 million annually, boosting them above the nation's other institutions.

Stefan Altevogt, an information officer at the German Academic Exchange Service, said that "the money will be allocated to the best spots in the scientific fields." He added that universities may receive different levels of funding, potentially further stratifying German higher education.

Altevogt added that while the amount of funding allocated for these institutions will not rival that given by the U.S. government to its major research universities, the money will create significant differences in Germany.

"It's a totally different ballgame" for American and British institutions, Altevogt said. He did not speculate as to the funding any one university might receive but said the funding will result in a "diversified landscape of universities."

Director of Institutional Research and Analysis Bernard Lentz said that in fiscal year 2004, Penn received $548.3 million in spendable federal funding, of which $170 million could be spent as the University saw fit.

According to its Web site, Harvard University netted $468.3 million in federal funds in the same year, most of it from the Department of Health and Human Services.

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