Viennese Universities of Applied Sciences in Financial Distress

Together, representatives of all five Viennese universities of applied sciences addressed the public today to highlight their precarious financial situation. The current cost increases among other things with energy and personnel hit professional schools particularly hard, efficiency increases and optimization potentials are exhausted, and reserves are hardly present, in order to cushion the current exorbitant inflation. The fact that the universities of applied sciences are in dire straits in the current exceptional economic situation is hardly surprising, since federal funding per student place has lost 36 percent (!) in value from 1993 to the present, measured against the consumer price index (CPI).

At the same time, the demands of business and industry to train sufficient highly qualified specialists are growing. To do this, the universities of applied sciences themselves need qualified staff and modern infrastructure. If the funding rates are not increased quickly and sustainably, there will be massive cuts in the number of students at Vienna’s universities of applied sciences. Cost-cutting measures such as the closure of laboratories and cuts in courses and staff would be unavoidable – damage that would hit the Vienna economic region in particular, where there is already an extreme shortage of skilled workers.

Appeal to the Federal Government and the Governor of Vienna

The representatives of the five Viennese universities of applied sciences Eva Schiessl-Foggensteiner (UAS BFI Vienna), Wilhelm Behensky (FH Campus Wien), Alexander Zirkler (Lauder Business School), Gabriele Költringer (UAS Technikum Wien) and Michael Heritsch (FH Wien der WKW) therefore jointly call for a 20 percent increase in the federal government’s student place funding rates as well as a sustainable, predictable adjustment of the funding rates based on the CPI or another suitable cost index. At the same time, they have sent a letter to the Governor of Vienna, Michael Ludwig, as the current Chairman of the Conference of Provincial Governors, asking the federal government to support their demands.

Vienna as a Location for Universities of Applied Sciences

With five universities of applied sciences, Vienna is the most important UAS location in Austria. More than 16,000 students, or over 30% of all students at Austrian universities of applied sciences, are currently pursuing a bachelor’s or master’s degree at one of Vienna’s five universities of applied sciences: UAS BFI Vienna, FH Campus Wien, Lauder Business School, UAS Technikum Wien and FH Wien der WKW.

Media Inquiries:

Mag. Thomas Faast
Head of Marketing & Communications
FH Technikum Wien
0664 619 25 06
thomas.faast@technikum-wien.at