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It is a sad twist of fate that Berlin's venerable Humboldt University is associated with the most alarming shock to Germany's academic system since the war. Responding to announced cuts of up to €600 million (US$680 million) in its 2006–09 budget, the university has said that it will not admit students for next winter term as it cannot guarantee proper scientific training and reasonably quick completion of studies.

Alexander von Humboldt, the nineteenth-century Berlin-born naturalist and geographer, was the founder of the modern German higher-education system. Its so far unshakeable principle, the unity of teaching and research, made Germany a cradle of modern science in the first half of the twentieth century. The success of science in Europe, the United States and Japan can be traced back to Humboldt's university ideals.

It is not difficult to see why, while Harvard and Oxford flourish, the Berlin original is on crutches. Berlin is still struggling with the immense costs of German reunification. Not only its three universities but also its opera houses, theatres, kindergartens and welfare facilities are facing major budget crises.

But the Humboldt University's unprecedented move — an act of despair committed on shaky legal ground — illustrates a fundamental problem of the higher-education system throughout Germany. Only a small minority of the 200,000 students who enrol each year at its 100 or so research universities is seeking a full scientific education. The majority would be satisfied with a solid academic training that qualifies them for a decent job outside research. But German universities aim at making researchers of them all. And they offer this for free: tuition fees are unknown in Germany.

This has much to do with deeply rooted anti-elitism, based on the respectable belief that everybody should have the same educational opportunities. Only in the past few years has hyper-egalitarianism rightly begun to be questioned. The recent introduction of bachelor degrees and fees for long-term students is surely only the start of change. The allocation of scarce resources must be rethought, and not only in Berlin, in order to keep the system competitive and viable.

The current merger of Berlin's medical faculties is a step in the right direction. Germany-wide, excellence in research needs selectivity without sacrificing training opportunities for as many as possible. Not every university need be a research hot-spot, and not every student needs to be trained by world-class scientists. If further down the road the Humboldt University becomes a centre of excellence in a more diversified university landscape, so much the better.