Author: Sophie Schulz

It feels like we are back in March of this year: During the last ETH Board meeting on July 10-11, it was decided to triple the tuition fees for international students and to adjust all tuition fees according to inflation. This issue had already been discussed and rejected in March, but unfortunately, the proposal was accepted this time.

How did this renewed discussion and drastic reversal occur just four months later? Here, politics play a crucial role. As you may know, the National Council and the Council of States have discussed a potential amendment to the ETH Law in connection with the 2025-2028 BFI message, which, among other things, sets the budget for the ETH domain. This amendment would mandate significantly higher tuition fees for international students and enjoys broad support from a majority of parties, including those usually against such increases (e.g., the SP). To preempt this substantial intrusion into ETH’s autonomy, the ETH Board decided to revisit the issue and ultimately changed its decision.

The VSETH continues to oppose this decision. Data from the WiegETH’s survey, which we conducted earlier this year, already show the severe consequences such an increase would have. Here are some not-so-fun facts from the data:

• A total of 51% of international students report that they would need a new scholarship after the increase. Additionally, 15% of international students say they would need an additional scholarship to complement their existing one, while only 5% indicate they could continue their studies without any scholarship.
• Master’s students without an ETH bachelor’s degree would be especially reliant on scholarships.
• When asked whether they would have chosen a different university if the tuition fees at ETH were CHF 2190 per semester, 31% of students overall said they would have chosen a different university, and 36% were unsure. Only 32% could say with certainty that they would have chosen ETH again.

Overall, these figures clearly show that the planned increase will significantly impact the financial situation of countless students. They also indicate that an ETH education would no longer be feasible for many under these new circumstances, and numerous new scholarships would be needed. The loss of these international students would not only greatly reduce diversity at ETH but also keep talented professionals away from Switzerland, exacerbating the country’s skilled labor shortage.

How will things proceed for us students now? The increase is set to be introduced starting from the fall semester of 2025. All students already enrolled will not be affected by this increase due to a transitional regulation, meaning that students who are currently matriculated will be able to complete their Bachelor’s or Master’s degree without a fee increase.

And what has VSETH planned to do against this decision? For VSETH, it is very clear: this decision must be challenged. An increase in tuition fees is not a good decision in any respect (the data speaks for itself), and we should loudly oppose it.

VSETH will of course be heavily involved in the hearing within the ETH domain. Additionally, we are already planning an action day in the first weeks of the semester, where all students can participate and protest against this decision. The exact date of the action day has not yet been set, but stay updated through the tuition fees newsletter or the VSETH Instagram account!

Everything you need to know about the current tuition fee discussions…

Feeling confused or downright overwhelmed? Curious about the (very) vibrant purple and orange VSETH campaign posters? Looking for explanations on the upcoming Swiss parliament vote that proposes tripling tuition fees for foreign students under the ETH Law? Well, you’re in the right place! Step into my (virtual) office, and let me tell you a tale involving budgets, missing millions, and an unhappy student association. Maybe you should sit down… Are you ready? Alright, let’s dive in!

To understand the whole situation we are in, we need to go back in time to autumn last year. At this point in time the federal council presented within their general budget discussions a first draft of the “BFI-Botschaft 2025-2028”, which amongst other things sets the budget of the ETH-Domain for the next years. These budget discussions were led under enormous financial pressure coming from various sides, mainly also due to inflation and the pandemic leaving a substantial financing deficit in the federal budget for 2022. The Swiss Federal Council was thus tasked with meeting financial obligations while adhering to the stringent “Schuldenbremse” (debt brake), resulting in substantial budget cuts across various sectors, including the ETH Domain. Specifically in this draft of the “BFI-Botschaft” it was revealed that the ETH Domain would receive less funding than required to sustain its previous growth rate. In Addition to this, in January 2024, the Federal Council announced a 100-million-franc budget cut for the ETH Domain in 2025. 

Now we are at the beginning of this year and ETH is facing huge budget cuts and also ever growing political pressure to cover costs by different means, i.e. increasing tuition. Here there was one obvious (and also politically pressured for) option for the ETH Board: According to the “ETH-Gesetz,” ETH can charge foreign students at most three times the fee paid by non-foreign students. Now we (i.e. VSETH) comes into play: When we found out about the discussion going on in the ETH board regarding the tuition increase, we set out to stop this increase from happening. We began to meet with the members of the ETH Board to explain to them why such an increase was unacceptable, sought contact with the students at EPFL and wrote a letter to the Federal Council. We did this with support from the heads of the ETH and EPFL schools, who gave a series of media interviews and loudly criticised the lack of federal funding in the ETH Domain. We fought and we won! On 7th March 2024, the ETH Board decided against an increase in tuition fees for foreign students. 

So how come we are now yet again discussing this threefold increase? Well this time it is not the incentive of the ETH board but actually directly coming from the confederation. In the past weeks the finance committee and the committee for science, education and culture of the Swiss parliament decided with a majority to propose to parliament to change the ETH law and make it obligatory for newly enrolling foreign students to pay at least triple the amount of tuition than Swiss students. This change of the law is now part of the discussion this coming Wednesday in parliament, when the whole “BFI-Botschaft” is supposed to be passed.

So now you might be thinking (and quite rightly so): Well shit. Going against the ETH board and getting them to change their minds: possible (and it obviously worked), but the Swiss lawmakers?! And this Wednesday?! Is the battle not lost already? To be frank: Yes, it is an enormous uphill battle and it is not clear if we can actually stop this from happening. But it is incredibly important to make ourselves heard in Bern and to resist this direct intervention of the Swiss parliament in ETH’s affairs! Also it is time to get the media and the public talking about this more diversely and to get our side of things represented more in this matter. VSETH strongly believes that students shouldn’t bear the brunt of symbolic acts or become pawns in political maneuvers and have to literally pay more because of these. The increase disproportionately impacts financially vulnerable students, and VSETH asserts that ETH should remain accessible to all, not just the financial elite.

Also we do have options. If it is decided on Wednesday that the law should be changed, then this is a long process and we would have the right to start a formal petition against this change of the law. This would need 50’000 supporting signatures in 100 days, so again not a minor task but we as VSETH have managed a successful petition before (and okay it was in the 1960s but still…). 

So, what’s the key takeaway? If you’re already enrolled as a foreign or non-foreign student at ETH, congratulations – this change (probably/hopefully) won’t affect you. But don’t let that fact dissuade you from voicing opposition! It is now of the utmost importance to make ourselves heard in Bern; that we won’t be played with like pawns or used as financial band-aids and that we don’t want ETH becoming a place for the financial elite, but to stay the diverse and internationally welcoming place it is!

Now that we’ve (hopefully) unraveled some of the confusion (perhaps replaced by a touch of indignation), it’s your turn to weigh in. Tell us how you feel about the Swiss parliament deciding over our heads how high tuition should be; sign our (informal) petition against the tuition fee increase; tell us how you would be affected by such an increase; post about this topic on social media, etc. The louder we are the better chances we have fighting this change of law.

Thank you for helping us!