Resolution against the budget cuts at Austrian universities

The Austrian government recently announced that Universities’ budgets will be cut by  roughly one billion euros.  These budget cuts are leading to new restrictions on  access to higher education, thereby disadvantaging those for whom the path to  university is already full of obstacles. For the Austrian Student Union it is  unacceptable that young people and students now have to bear the brunt of the budget consolidation. 

While excessive wealth and billion-euro inheritances remain untouched, the government wants universities to contribute toward the budget consolidation. This not only weakens the academic and research landscape in Austria but also poses the problem  that universities will now more than ever turn toward third-party funding. While anti-democratic movements are gaining strength not only in Austria but worldwide, the  government is weakening the universities—strongholds of democracy and critical thinking.  

 Furthermore, this intensifies the problem of higher education institutions, 

especially universities, being structurally underfunded for years. The universities are already suffering from low student-to-faculty ratios and chronic underfunding—and are now expected to bear the brunt of the budget crisis. Cutting funding in the academic sector will not only be a burden for  students and university staff 

themselves, but by the entire country. For a thriving academic hub is the foundation for societal development. 

 In addition, this decision jeopardizes access to higher education in Austria This can mean excluding students from diverse backgrounds and stepping back in time to when universities were still elitist institutions. Especially for students from  working-class families, a university education risks becoming nothing more than a dream if universities are forced to further limit the number of available spots.  

 Just this February the Austrian ministry for women, research and science launched the  “Higher Education Strategy 2040” initiative, which intended to bring together stakeholders in order to transform Austria’s higher education institutions into places where scholarship is actively pursued and shared with civil society. However, if the government now starts cutting budgets in the academic sector, how can such a  Higher Education Strategy be implemented?

ESU and the Austrian Students’ Union (ÖH) strongly disapprove of the budget cuts  proposed by the Austrian government.  

Reason & Seconders 

Seconders: AMLÉ, VSS-UNES-USU, fzs, BSA