Der Numberger 🇩🇪

STATE-FUNDED IMMIGRATION FRAUD, BAVARIAN STYLE The excellent investigative journalists at Die Welt have given us another inspiring story of German academic fecklessness. The German state of Bavaria is in the course of investing €100 million to construct a "European Campus" in the town of Rottal-Inn. The campus is supposed to be connected to the existing Technical University of Deggendorf. The campus is aimed at foreign students. Most classes are taught in English and the courses are supposed to produce graduates who will ease the (alleged) shortage of "skilled workers" in Germany. However, Welt reporters got a hold of internal documents which revealed a curious fact: Up to 80% of the enrolled students were listed as "dropouts". According to insiders, these students enrolled at the "campus" only to get residency status in Germany. They then started working in the black market, often in places far from quaint old Rottal-Inn. Once they got close to being expelled, they changed their official major, which earned them a new student visa. Most of the students came from India, Pakistan, Egypt, Nigeria, and like countries. Two men are under investigation for providing 400 fake addresses and rental contracts for aspiring "students" at the "European Campus". Contacted for comment, the university first issued the standard ink-squirt of corporate-speak and euphemisms. When put under more pressure, including from the state education ministry, the university said they take the drop-out issue "very seriously" and promised to institute reforms such reviewing the "suitability" of students to study at the campus, which they apparently hadn't been doing until then. Based on my long experience at German universities, here's what I think happened. First, Bavarian state opens up fancy new university to attract foreign students. Since this is Germany, there is no objective admissions test, because that would be "dehumanizing" and "discriminatory". Since this is Germany, there is no in-person interview process, because that would be "dehumanizing" and "discriminatory" -- and also a lot of effort for work-shy bureaucrats. Foreign fraudsters, who already know Germany as a land of innocent, apple-cheeked "Naivlings" (to use a great German word), descend on the new taxpayer-funded institution like hyenas on a freshly-killed gazelle. Existing student-visa fraud networks in the usual-suspect countries get to work putting together applications for the dimmer sons and daughters of middle-class Indians, Pakistanis, and Nigerians, charging the equivalent of €2,000 or €3,000. These fraudsters know that application to universities in Germany is done by paper alone, and that German bureaucrats are mesmerized by stamps and certifications. If an applicant has ticked all the boxes and has the right stamps, he or she gets in. After that, the university doesn't care what happens. There is no duty to attend German university lectures, so the fact that the student is living in Berlin and paying off his fake-paperwork fees by delivering food doesn't register as long as he shows up for tests. If he misses a few, then he just switches his major, which entitles him to a new student visa. "Shiva H. Vishnu (Simpsons joke, therefore not racist), these Germans are gullible," he thinks. After a few years, he manages to secure some sort of residency permit, or establishes a foothold in the gray economy. At the university, this state of affairs can go on forever, because Germans within dysfunctional institutions don't really care that they are dysfunctional as long as they still have a job. And that job is very easy, since they only have to teach 20% of the students they're supposed to be teaching. Why kill the goose that lays this golden egg year after year by calling attention to the fact that the university is a sham? The fact that all of this is funded by €100 million in taxpayer funds is beside the point. If there's a problem with the "European Campus" of Deggendorf Technical University where I work, well, then, that's something politicians should fix. Fortunately, there was at least one person at the university who cared enough to leak the internal reports. Otherwise, this could have gone on for decades. And in fact, it still might! welt.de/politik/deutschland/…