At first sight, there seems to be no explicit policy of quality assurance in German higher education today. The very word (Qualitdtssicherung) is just beginning to be used in German higher education policy debates, whereas it is well known in industry and commerce. Higher education researchers use the term in their circles, but it has hardly permeated into faculty meetings or academic senates. In state ministries of higher education and in higher education committees of state legislatures the q-word is more likely to be used in connection with worries about the efficiency and effectiveness of higher education. Considering the elaborate theories, methods, and schemes of quality assurance in higher education systems and the degree of its institutionalisation as well as the wealth of research and practical experience in some Western countries, German activities in this field are unremarkable and not highly visible. The German higher education community, however, is increasingly concerned about the negative effects of overcrowding, underfunding and understaffing on the quality of higher education in Germany. Outside higher education research groups, the wealth of international experience, methodology, knowledge and criticism on evaluating and assuring quality in higher education, published in innumerable books, articles and reports and discussed at many conferences and meetings, has hardly registered among higher education policy makers and leaders in Germany. On the whole, it is therefore not surprising that a recent comparative study of higher education policies indicates that in comparison to some other countries, there is no real policy of quality assurance in German higher education yet (Frackmann & de Weert, 1993). This is also noted in a joint pilot study on economics in Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom: With not much more than appropriate exaggeration it can be said that the comparative quality issue does not exist in higher education in Germany (Brennan, 1992). That was published in 1992 and is based on data from 1991. Since then, the quality debate in German higher education policy has been gaining momentum. In some German states, policies of evaluating or assessing the quality of what higher education institutions produce are emerging. But it is a long way from assessing quality and being concerned about it to an active policy of really improving it. Where that way has to be paved with structural reforms and additional funding, the thin layer of consensus about what should be done may not be a sufficient foundation for implementing a policy of quality assurance. That, I suggest, is the situation in the old West German states of the Federal Republic in early 1994, as characterised by concerned voices inside and outside the higher education community [1]. 201