The answer is that both have had student protests against increasing tuition and fees. Recently, the German government decided that it was time to break with the tradition of “free” university education and proposed that students should pay at least something toward the cost of their educations. (Tony Blair’s government is trying to do the same thing, and meeting with great resistance among Leftists who believe that government should make everything free.) And as we know, UNC students have been wailing about their modest increases in tuition, making a very, very inexpensive education just a very inexpensive education. The Feb. 10th Christian Science Monitor has an article (if there’s a link, I don’t have it — sorry) discussing the proposed change in policy in Germany. It quotes a remarkably perceptive student as asking, “Why should a taxi driver’s taxes finance the cost of higher education?” UNC students should be asking the same question.