Broken floors, old scratched tables and a dilapidated digital infrastructure. This is how we know the Faculty of Philosophy (PhilFak for short) on Wilhelm-Röpke-Strasse in Marburg. It is an ideal symbol for the overall state of academic teaching in Hesse and Germany. But the dilapidated buildings and the lack of digitization are just the tip of an iceberg called structural underfunding. The universities receive too little money, and we as students see this primarily in the condition of the buildings. But teaching also suffers massively under the current conditions. But it is precisely this that is difficult for us to recognize, because we have never experienced it any other way.

All the frontal teaching, multiple-choice exams and the focus on degrees and exams (instead of content); overcrowded seminars as well as inadequate support from the lecturers are consequences of underfunding. The fact that many students have been confronted with university overcrowding since the beginning of their studies tempts one to misjudge the current conditions as unchangeable. But we know from lecturers and reports from the time before Bologna that things can be done differently: deeper engagement with the study content, greater seminar selection and opportunities for trial and error, ungraded learning steps up to the first degree, and less hierarchical learning with and from one another.

With the planned cost-cutting measures at the Department 03: Social Sciences and Philosophy, the precarious situation is ignored and the deficit in the form of pressure and overload is consistently transferred to the students, the scientific & administrative-technical staff and teachers. The precarious situation becomes even more noticeable in times of online teaching. Although this requires more supervision anyway, the planned cost-cutting measures will already take effect in the coming semester: fewer student tutorials, fewer lecturers.

Even before the closure of the universities because of Corona and before the cost-cutting measures, seminars were held at the Department 03 with over 100 people (Political Science, Sociology) and tutorials for freshmen in Sociology with over 30 people. In the winter semester 2020/21, tutorials were held online with 40 students. Since the number of student tutorials at the department is to be almost halved for cost reasons, the situation will become even worse. The fact that tutorials are essential for familiarization with topics, since it is precisely there that content and questions of understanding can be discussed more informally, is not taken into account.

However, the institutes do not make these cutback decisions voluntarily. Rather, they are presented to the departmental committees from above as having no alternative. In addition to the unwillingness to simply accept the cost-cutting measures and grudgingly implement them, the institutes are haggling over material resources and the lecturers over the tutorial positions paid for by them.

However, cutting jobs without creating glaring vacancies in the teaching offer cannot really be the solution to the problem. The vacant mid-level faculty positions and the additional student support needs created by the elimination of tutorials will further exacerbate the mid-level faculty situation, and it is clear that the support deficit, as well as the budget deficit, cannot be addressed as a result.

Corona and the resulting conversion to online teaching have further exacerbated many of the aforementioned problems in Department 03. Not only are student assistant positions to remain unfilled, but a general contract freeze of 1 1/2 years (as of May 2021) is to be enforced for the appointment of new professors and research assistants. And where positions remain vacant, the step to complete elimination is not far away. How are teaching and the flow of information supposed to function well?