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Numerus Clausus ("closed number" in Latin) is one of many methods used to limit the number of students who may study at a university. It can be similar to a quota, both in form and motivation.

Modern use

The numerus clausus is currently used in countries and universities where the number of applicants greatly exceeds the number of available places for students. This is the case in many countries of continental Europe.

With successful completion of the academically-oriented and state-approved secondary school (usually a Gymnasium), a student passes the so-called Abitur or Matura exams. After this is completed, they receive a document that confirms their passing and lists their grades. This is then used to obtain either an implicit or an explicit permission to study at a university.

Students in Germany and much of Europe choose their field of specialization when they begin university study, unlike students in the U.S. who specialize later. Fields such as medicine, biology, dentistry, pharmacology, psychology and business administration are particularly popular and therefore harder to gain admittance to study.

The selection of students for universities depends on the field of study, the specific university they apply to, and the grade point average from the Abitur/Matura.

Numerus clausus in Germany

The numerus clausus is currently used in Germany to address overcrowding - while the number of students has increased by 100% to two million since 1980, the number of professors has increased by only 25% in the same time period.

The German state in which an Abitur is granted must honor the permission to study at a university.

The numerus clausus is a way to select among competing applicants in particularly popular fields at particular universities, by limiting the pool of qualifying applicants. Currently, the selection depends primarily on the field of study, the respective German state, and the Abitur grade point average.

As an illustration, if you wanted to study medicine in 2003, then the qualifying Abitur grade you would need would depend in part on the state in which you applied: to secure a place at a university in Baden-Württemberg you would need a minimum score of 1.8 on a scale of 1.0 (best) to 4.0 (worst); to secure a place in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, 2.4 could be a qualifying score. About a quarter of those admitted, however, are selected from a waiting list of unsuccessful applicants from previous years.

The numerus clausus is limited to particular universities for many fields, but for the most popular (such as medicine or biology), it is nationwide, with enrollment handled centrally by the Zentralstelle für die Vergabe von Studienplätzen (ZVS).

Simple description of the procedure
On a federal level, each year 51 percent of the available university places in a given field of study, e.g. biology, are distributed among those who have the best Abitur marks, 25 percent of the places are awarded to applicants who are on a waiting list, and the following 24 percent are given to applicants who fulfil the so-called "Hochschulkriterium" (verbatim "High school criterion", in the German language a university is a "high school").

On the local level, applicants are distributed to the several universities. Effectively, about 25 percent are assigned to the university which they want to attend (according to a list of preferences). The rest are given to applicants who have reasons to study in a specific place, e.g. if they have to care for children or if they are disabled.

Numerus Clausus in Finland

The Finnish system of implementing the numerus clausus provides an interesting comparison to the German model. In Germany, the main weight of the student selection lies on the Abitur grades (i.e. high school diploma). In Finland, which has a similar nationwide final exam, the matriculation examination (Finnish ylioppilastutkinto), the majority of student selections are based on entrance exams. As every university has internal autonomy, the entrance procedures vary widely. Most degree programs consist of a single major subject and have their own entrance procedures. Typically, the syllabus of the entrance exam consists of several basic textbooks in the chosen area. Typically, the student must take a written exam consisting of open-ended questions. In addition to the exam score, the applicant may also receive points from the high school diploma grades and from previous experience and hobbies. However, nearly all programs have a quota in which the score is calculated solely on the basis of the entrance exam. The quota gives a second chance to students who have fared badly in the matriculation exam or have only a vocational diploma.

The student is almost never required to a file statement of intent, recommendations or similar personal documents. Interviews are only used in the fields of education and drama. In education, the purpose of the interview is mainly to remove applicants of a totally unsuitable character. The extensive use of standard-form applications and written exams is explained by the fear of personal bias introduced by more personal selection methods.

In fields where the entrance requirement is less competitive, primarily science and technology, the selection system resembles the German model. It is relatively easy to be accepted in these fields - about one third of the study places in technology are awarded on the basis of the matriculation exam. The rest of the students are admitted on the basis of an entrance exam.

In the Finnish system, the numerus clausus is the most important factor limiting student numbers. After gaining entrance, traditionally a student cannot be expelled, pays no tuition, and enjoys a state study grant. The new legislation, introduced in the summer of 2005, limits the study period to seven years, but it is anticipated that it will be relatively easy to receive a permission for a longer study time. No changes to the financial position of the student is currently being considered (as of the summer of 2005).

Numerus clausus in Switzerland

The introduction of the Numerus clausus in Switzerland has limited the access to the medical studies at the universities. At all universities of the German-speaking part of Switzerland, the students need to have a high score on an aptitude test which comprises of logical and spacial thinking and text understanding skills.

The universities in the western, French-speaking part of Switzerland did not decide to introduce a numerus clausus. Instead, these universities provide unrestricted access to the first-year curriculum in medicine; and the best first-year students are allowed to furthen their medical studies at the same or at another university.

In other popular faculties like psychology or journalism, there are also aptitude tests - but they concern only a single university.

Use of Numerus clausus as a prejudiced rule

Before the Second World War, the limitations in eastern European countries were usually based on the religion of the student, in particular limiting the number of students of Jewish origin.

After World War II, converse regulations that promoted positive discrimination based on racial or social criteria (e.g. peasants, Africans), were introduced in many countries, including Poland and the United States (affirmative action).

In recent years several major American universities in the western states have been investigated for following a discriminatory policy similar to the numerus clausus in order to restrict the number of Asian student admissions.

Jewish quota

Main article: Jewish quota

This limitation took the form of total prohibition of Jewish students, or of limiting the number of Jewish students so that their share in the student population would not be larger than their share in the general population (Jewish quota). It was motivated by the contemporary view of the balancing chances for education for ethnic groups.

The numerus clausus policies affected a limited number of people, since the number of university students before WW2 was very small.

Jews who wanted a university education used various ways to handle this obstacle: bribing the authorities, changing their religion, or traveling to countries without such limitations. In Hungary, for example, 5,000 Jewish youngsters (including Edward Teller) left the country after the introduction of the Numerus Clausus.

Countries legislating limitations on the admission of Jewish students, at various times, included:

Numerus clausus in Poland
Poland tried to introduce a formal Numerus Clausus law in 1923, but faced objections from the League of Nations. However a Numerus Clausus was unofficially introduced in the 1937 by some universities and the share of Jewish students was limited to 10%, which was more or less the proportion of Jews in the population of Poland (compared to 20%-40% before regulation).

Paradoxically, the numerus clausus caused many Jewish students to emigrate from Poland, and therefore saved their lives during the German Holocaust. It must be emphasized that the numerus clausus was introduced at the level of universities, which in those times didn't educate many students (several thousands at best). However, the introduction of the policy must have had immense influence on the level of the average student.

The official reason for the policy was that during the Russian Tsar's rule, Poles were discriminated against in the area of education. They were denied education in Polish, and the schools were badly funded in the countryside. The advocates of the solution pointed out that the limit would balance the chance to enter university of all nationalities in Poland.

The other reason given by the supporters of the idea was that it was an attempt to equal the chance of children from countryside families who had very limited access to education to the chance of the children of Jewish families living in the towns and cities. Nevertheless, the Polish intelligentsia of Jewish origins formed at least 40-50% of the whole Polish educated class. The genocide of the Jewish intelligentsia and the genocide of the Polish intelligentsia during WW2 (see Holocaust, AB Action, Katyn massacre) badly affected the development of the Polish economy and society after the war.

Similar policies, but based on preferential treatment of peasant children, were introduced after WW2, but with little effect. The communist government of the People's Republic of Poland discriminated against student from the intelligentsia and bourgeois classes. Another form of positive discrimination in education in the People's Republic of Poland was the law enforcing an equal number of students of medicine of both genders, despite the fact that female students usually performed better on exams. All forms of discrimination were abolished in Poland after 1989.

Numerus clausus in the United States
Although never officially legislated, between 1918 and the 1950s a number of private universities and medical schools introduced numerus clausus policies limiting admissions of students based on their religion or race to certain percentages within the college population. One of the groups affected by these policies was Jewish applicants whose admission to some New England and New York City area liberal arts universities fell significantly between the late 1910s and the mid-1930s. For instance, the admission to Harvard University during that period fell from 27.6% to 17.1% and in Columbia University from 32.7% to 14.6%. Corresponding quotas were introduced in the medical and dental schools resulting during the 1930s in the decline of Jewish students: e.g. in Cornell University School of Medicine from 40% in 1918-1922 to 3.57% in 1940-1941, in Boston University Medical School from 48.4% in 1929-1930 to 12.5% in 1934-1935. During this period, a notable exception among U. S. medical schools was the medical school of Middlesex University, which had no quotas and many Jewish faculty members and students; school officials believed that antisemitism played a role in the school's failure to secure AMA accreditation., pp. 42-3: founder's son C. Ruggles Smith quoted: "From its inception, Middlesex was ruthlessly attacked by the American Medical Association, which at that time was dedicated to restricting the production of physicians, and to maintaining an inflexible policy of discrimination in the admission of medical students. Middlesex, alone among medical schools, selected its students on the basis of merit, and refused to establish any racial quotas"

In addition to Jewish applicants, Catholics, African-Americans, and women were also targeted by admission restrictions. African-Americans, in some instances, were outright excluded (numerus null) from admission e.g. Columbia University. The most common method, employed by 90% of American universities and colleges at the time to identify the "desirable" (native-born, white, Protestant) applicants were the application form questions about their religious preference, race, and nationality. Other more subtle methods included restrictions on scholarships, rejection of transfer students, and preferences for alumni sons and daughters.

Legacy preference for university admissions was devised in 1925 at Yale University, where the proportional number of Jews in the student body was growing at a rate that became alarming to the school's administrators. However, even prior to that year, Yale had begun to incorporate such amorphous criteria as 'character' and 'solidity', as well as 'physical characteristics', into its admissions process as an excuse for screening out Jewish students; but nothing did the trick quite like legacy preference, which allowed the admissions board to summarily pass over Jews in favor of 'Yale sons of good character and reasonably good record', as a 1929 memo phrased it. Other schools, including Harvard, soon began to pursue similar policies for similar reasons, and Jewish students in the Ivy League schools were maintained at a steady 10% through the 1950s. Between 1950 and 1955, the Bronx High School of Science (whose student body historically includes a large percentage of Jews) had only seven students admitted to Yale, while Phillips Academy Andover had 275. Such policies were gradually discarded during the early 1960s, with Yale being one of the last of the major schools to eliminate the last vestige with the class of 1970 (entering in 1966).*

The religion preference question was eventually dropped from the admission application forms and informal numerus clausus policies in the American private universities and medical schools were abandoned by the 1950s.

References

  • Jerome Karabel, The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, Houghton Mifflin, 2005, ISBN 0618574581.
  • Marcia Graham Synnot, Anti-Semitism and American Universities: Did Quotas Follow the Jews?, in Jeffrey S. Gurock (ed.), Anti-Semitism in America, vol. VI, part 2, Routledge, 1998, ISBN 0415919339.

External links

History of education | Education policy | Discrimination | Latin phrases

Numerus clasus | Numerus clausus | Numerus clausus | נומרוס קלאוזוס | ヌメルス・クラウズス | Numerus clausus (nauka)

 

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