The first fundamental ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court on the numerus clausus (BVerfGE 33, 303ff.) demanded the exhaustive use of existing training capacities and a comparable capacity utilisation of universities. As a result, the federal states concluded the first state treaty on the allocation of study places in 1972. This also marked the birth of capacity law as the basis for calculating the number of study places to be provided by state universities. In essence, the annual admission figures are calculated on the basis of staff-dependent teaching capacity and curricular norm values (CNW), which quantify the mathematical teaching effort required to properly educate a student in a subject.
On the one hand, capacity law has thus provided a reliable planning and control instrument for more than 50 years with regard to the provision of study programmes and the allocation of resources. On the other hand, there is persistent criticism of the high cost of the calculations and the underlying input variables. Another argument is that, in times of extended university autonomy, capacity law imposes unnecessary bureaucratic constraints on universities, making it more difficult to raise their profile and develop the quality of their degree programmes.
Against this background, the central objectives of the project were to provide an overview of the design, application and effect of capacity law in general and of bandwidth models instead of fixed CNW in particular. The knowledge gained was to be reflected in its connection to other subject areas, in particular higher education financing and study quality development, and on this basis impulses for the further development of capacity law were to be discussed at the level of the Länder and the universities.
The legal framework (university admission laws, capacity regulations, teaching obligation regulations) was prepared for comparison across states. Then, over 40 guided interviews were conducted with representatives of the science ministries of the states, individuals from universities who were either directly involved in capacity calculations or belonged to the university management, and experts in administrative law. Additionally, comparisons were made to curricular values in various countries and subject groups based on data provided by the partners in the discussion.
Representatives from science ministries and universities were continuously involved in the project to jointly develop knowledge and facilitate transfer. At the beginning, over 20 people from seven federal states participated in a workshop that helped shape the project's further course of action, then there were various contacts during the interview phase and project lectures, and in November, 50 experts on the topic came together for a final event in Hanover, where the results of the project were presented, discussed, and validated.
An updated overview of how capacity law is handled in Germany in the individual federal states, as well as an analysis of examples of how it is implemented and used within universities, will be published afterwards.
The project was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) from October 1, 2024, to September 30, 2025 (FKZ 16RBM1020).
