Until the middle of the 20th century, academic knowledge was still extraordinarily exclusive as a topic and subject for a relatively small circle of people. Over the last decades, this situation has changed fundamentally. Under the auspices of the “knowledge society” or “knowledge economy,” the proportion of academics in Germany, as in most other industrialized countries, has been gradually increased. For a few years now, we have been registering more university entrants than new trainees. More children are attending high schools, more universities have been built – and new university models have been developed. In the North Rhine-Westphalian Higher Education Act of the 1970s, vocational training was only mentioned in a subordinate clause alongside the core tasks of academic teaching and research. Today, the focus on the labor market dominates the corresponding paragraphs. Now, for example, there is also talk of the desired transfer of knowledge and technology, the promotion of professional self-employment and support for business start-ups. Education is now seen as capital, both on an individual and collective level. This shift in perspective is not objectionable in principle. What is problematic is its one-sidedness, or rather the absence of further, complementary new university ideas. It is well documented that in Western countries economic and social participation and academic participation increasingly coincide. Higher wages, better career prospects – the university of the present day, which in Germany now takes in about thirty percent of a cohort, has, by virtue of its size and significance, placed itself in an extremely ambivalent role: in the role of an agency of simultaneous mass inclusion and exclusion.

MASS INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION

It is already becoming apparent that the concentration on only one educational path as a privileged access to the upper echelons of business and politics is accompanied by serious social consequences. This is most strikingly evident in the U.S. – a country that is increasingly grouped along the distinction between academics and non-academics. The associated fault line runs through the political landscape – for example, in the division of the electorate into increasingly irreconcilable Democratic and Republican positions – as well as other areas, such as health, where since the 1990s there has been a significant increase in deaths from suicide, as well as drug and alcohol abuse, among middle-aged non-academics. American higher education is contributing to this problem. Over the years, the high cost of college, the role of donations, and selection procedures such as SAT tests have made family wealth an increasingly crucial variable in access and success. In Ivy League universities, on average, more than two-thirds of students come from the twenty percent wealthiest households; at Princeton and Yale, even more students study from the higher and highest income brackets than from the bottom sixty percent of incomes nationwide. Again, and especially in the latter cases, the in- resp. exclusion performance with considerable consequences for society as a whole. Statistically, those who find their way into these networks of the few not only have a significantly higher income, but also the best prospects of reaching the top positions in the country.

ON THE WAY TO A NETWORKED UNIVERSITY

These trends have long since arrived in Germany as well. Just think of the vanishingly small proportion of non-academics in the Bundestag. Combine this ratio with the fact that only about a quarter of all children from non-academic households make it to university, and you have a real problem of representation and democracy. Political disenchantment and low voter turnout in the corresponding milieus are an obvious consequence. Against this backdrop, it seems important for universities to assume their democratic and civic responsibility more than they have in the past. The first projects to this end are already underway. The Ruhr region in particular, for example the University of Witten/Herdecke, the Ruhr University of Bochum and the University of Duisburg-Essen, have taken considerable steps with a wide range of formats – from initiative labs to service learning, talent scouts and school support programs. Theoretical concepts are also being developed. For some years now, educational research has been discussing the topic of “third mission” in particular. In addition to the traditional tasks of research and teaching, new areas are being opened up for universities here – these range from the “entrepreneurial university” and the development of regional innovation networks to the promotion of sustainability and social commitment. A richly diffuse field has thus been created. Further differentiations are worthwhile – including a separate focus on the university as a civil society actor. In this sense, the university of tomorrow would not only have an idea of itself as a researching, teaching, and value-creating institution, but also, borrowing a term from philosopher Danielle Allen, as a networking institution. In the context of highly fragmented societies, networking, is the cultivation of what she calls “bridges” across demographic and other fractures, is central to the vitality of democracy and community. Whether young or old, rural or urban, poor or rich, immigrant or not, employed or self-employed, educated or studying, female, male or diverse – for democratic coexistence to succeed, for political debates and discourses to find common ground, there needs to be shared experiences, bonds, knowledge bases. This is precisely where the responsibility of universities comes in. Although they will have to remain selective for the time being, they have the chance to make a considerable contribution to the density, intensity and thus strength of democratic culture through openness and the will to make the most diverse social realities into recognized and tangible elements of their teaching and academic culture.