Background: In 2015, the Higher Education Financing Agreement I was agreed between the state government (BaWü) and the universities. This has a term of 5 years and therefore expires at the end of 2020. The aim was to support the universities financially with regard to the high numbers of students starting university due to the double high school education year and to guarantee the universities secure funding for the duration of the contract. It was expected that the number of students would decline again afterwards. However, this did not happen, so that the number of students continues to stagnate at a high level. The universities therefore continue to need financial support from the state and demand an increase in basic funding to ensure the quality of teaching in the coming years. The Higher Education Financing Pact II is therefore currently being negotiated between the universities and the state government.

The State Rectors' Conference (LRK) has compiled the demands of the universities and determined their basic needs to be an annual sum of € 1.6 billion. In addition, the universities are demanding an increase in funding for 2021 in the amount of €172 million in order to meet the current tasks such as digitisation and securing the infrastructure.

Currently, the state government is only providing €8 million for these tasks in 2021. This corresponds to about 4.7% of the required minimum sum. The already existing funding gap of currently 3540 € per student per year (due to inflation and in comparison to 1998) would widen even further. Despite the state's good economic situation and bubbling tax revenues, the state budget does not provide sufficient funding for the universities. Furthermore, the status quo could only be maintained with the funds budgeted by the LRK. With the funds that are to be allocated to the universities according to the current state of negotiations, teaching would probably be limited to the minimum. Offers such as tutorials, seminars, internships, preliminary courses, revision courses, extended library opening hours, the writing workshop, but also study places or entire study courses could be cancelled and dropped. The Landes-ASten-Konferenz, or LAK for short (AStA: the association of student representations of the universities in BaWü), supports the LRK's demands and has added others. These include: long-term personnel planning, building owner's rights for the universities, contract duration of ten years instead of only the previously planned seven. More can be found on the LAK's information page on this topic (see link below).

Since the basic funding estimated so far is far too low to maintain teaching at the universities in BaWü, many protest actions will take place in October 2019. On 17.10. students already demonstrated in Stuttgart (organised by the Tübingen medical faculty) and on 30.10. a state-wide day of action will take place. What exactly will be organised in Ulm is described below. All students are encouraged to participate nationwide.