Germany's Elite University Plan in Jeopardy

The German government's ambitious plan to create an elite university program to put a handful of its colleges on equal footing with Harvard or Oxford may be in jeopardy. A vote on the plan is expected on July 5, but several states ruled by the opposition conservatives have said they will reject the plan if the government does not pledge additional funding. Peter Frankenberg, the science minister for the state of Baden- Württemburg and chief negotiator on the elite university issue for the Christian Democratic Union, said his party would not support the plan if it involved diverting funding from existing higher education programs, like school construction, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation or the German Academic Exchange Service. Frankenberg said his state might still vote in favor of the plan, but only with improvements to the bill. However, Germany's minister for education and research, Edelgard Bulmahn has cautioned states not to abandon a delicate compromise recently reached or to allow the program to fail because of party tactics.