The instrumentalization of rationalized financial management of public Greek universities in order to further degrade them starts from something real but essentially negligible.
Suddenly we are in pain to “bring order” to the public university. In 2022 came a law (4957) which is unenforceable and whose implementation largely entails additional financial costs, without any certainty that it will benefit the Greek academic reality in any direction. Already in 2025, many articles of the law are still receiving extensions of implementation from the Ministry of Education, and as for the deadlocks that arise in the meantime, no one has sat down to study them ex ante. Because if the suggestions of numerous academics who are “tortured” every day to carry out their work with the existing bureaucracy swallowing them up had been considered, it would certainly have been understood ex ante that a further increase in bureaucracy and procedures would only be detrimental.
In Law 4957/2022, which I have yet to understand whether it is a grandiose project with the main aim of leaving a name in history or whether it was really intended to benefit the public Greek university, is now being added, by the successor, the sweeping and largely uncriteria-free “deletion” of “n + late” students (where n stands for the official duration of studies set by the university and the following figure the additional years the person concerned has remained registered as a student). During the history of Greek academia, students have never had any time limit with regard to completing their studies. Thus, even those who dropped out remain listed on the registers of universities. The current minister has thus decided to put an end to this practice, by enforcing an “n+2” rule for those university students enrolled in four-year programs and “n+3” to the students enrolled in five- and six-year programs. This time limit is supposed to be enforced immediately (still pending approval from the respective university councils of Greek universities). Once enforced it will apply to all students who have entered tertiary education – i.e. people who entered in 1985, 2000 or 2017.
I would like at this point to state my opinion on this particular issue. Personally, for starters, I believe that: 1) such a measure cannot be applied horizontally; 2) we absolutely must differentiate between students (e.g. n+3 from n+20 [yes they exist!]); and 3) it is necessary to consider whether students have remained active and are “struggling” to complete their studies or are inactive. I would also like to know where the economic study is that calculated the financial burden on the public purse of the per capita cost of each perpetual student. Because it really infuriates me that we have spent millions of euros on rail networks that do not exist, on digital control systems for railways that do not exist, on projects that have never been completed and delivered decades past the deadline, and all of this is of little concern to any of the ministries involved. But we are in pain to “bring order” to the perennial students who “waste public money.”
To the point now. Much has been written regarding this issue. And I agree with some of the arguments on both sides. But at the beginning of my article I wrote that this measure degrades the public university in a very covert way. The issue is not at all obvious.
So, before the deletion of the “eternal students” (a term translated directly from the Greek language) is well implemented, and while the Agricultural University of Athens has not made any decision through its senate, the professors already have a headache. Two weeks ago, my phone rang three times within 10 days with calls about a particular student. This student is within the “n+2” bracket, meaning he has not yet exceeded the limit set by law. Parents, friends, and even the deputy mayor called me to express their concern that the student will be expelled if he does not pass the three remaining courses. Notably, I happen to be the professor on these courses. Fear everywhere that the student will be written off, that the expenses and efforts of so many years will be wasted, that his life and career will be ruined, etc etc… So now the ball is now in the professors’ court. Right?
If the student is in danger of being expelled, I must make sure he gets a degree somehow. Right? The huge share of responsibility that the state and the government have for the general economic situation, for the fact that students are forced to work to study, for the fact that there are no dormitories to support the economically disadvantaged, etc etc, are not taken into account. The responsibility of the student on the other hand, to whom for four years I have been anxiously shouting repeatedly: “Come to class. Sit down to study. Don’t stay up pointlessly in front of the TV and scrolling on social media. Take notes. Attend your classes…” they all too go to Caiaphas. Good.
And we now have a controversial conversation with the parent on the phone. An honest, breadwinner parent, barely making ends meet with a mortgage, the father a laborer and the mother a seasonal food service worker. And they have also financially supported one more kid to go through college before helping my student (their second child). I bow first to the family.
But with all due respect, I ask, and I asked the parent I spoke to on the phone: 1) Do you want your children to have a degree in a subject they don’t know? 2) Do you wish in their careers that they will fail brilliantly as their knowledge will not match their qualifications? 3) How exactly will this kind of “help” serve both the individual and society as a whole? By devaluing a university institution and putting the efforts of all those involved in it in the dustbin?
If this phone call is just a glimpse of what is to come, then you realize that we will not be able to resist for long. Indirectly, this kind of horizontal decision forces us to give in, one way or another. And if we are going to get there, then the solution is one and it was given years ago by game theory. All students will have an incentive to drop classes after n+ so that professors will be forced to “help” them. And if that’s where it’s going, then the ministry better come up with a law to print out the degrees and send them in the mail. That way, they will save everyone all the effort and fatigue of the whole process.
Marina Selini Katsaiti is associate professor and chair of the Department of Economic and Regional Development at the Agricultural University of Athens in Amfissa, Greece.