Navigating academic prestige: university choice and distinction of German upper milieu students

ABSTRACT

This article examines the relevance of different institutional levels in higher education for the educational strategies of upper milieu students in a case study conducted in Germany. Based on our analysis of 95 qualitative interviews with Masters students from different social backgrounds, we show how upper milieu students take advantage of the new vertical stratification in the German higher education system such as the emergence of ‘universities of excellence’, national rankings and ‘elitist’ degree programmes and networks. They also have more resources at their disposal to deal with the new complexity created by the current transformations in the field of higher education in Germany. Instead of referring to common schemes that distinguish between vertical and horizontal differentiation in higher education, we propose to focus on ‘academic prestige configurations’ in order to better understand contemporary processes of social differentiation and distinction between students. In this way, we aim to advance the empirical and theoretical discussion in higher education research on upper class students. The focus of our study is not solely on elite education, but rather on exploring the status reproduction of upper milieus through education.

KEYWORDS:

• Educational strategies
• prestige
• symbolic capital
• upper class students
• institutional levels

Introduction

Following Bourdieu's theory of distinction, the increasing participation in higher education as a consequence of the demands of the knowledge society in the twenty-first century (OECD 2022) is likely to challenge the efforts of the upper milieus to maintain the ‘structure of distances’ in social space. Based on this theoretical assumption, our research project is interested in the distinction strategies of the upper milieus that they use in the ‘race for better positions’ in times of an anticipated ‘diploma inflation’ (Bourdieu 1984). The question of university choice and the importance of a university's academic prestige will therefore be examined in this article with a focus on the educational strategies of students from upper milieus in Germany.

An effective distinction strategy is to choose a prestigious university (Baker and Brown 2007; Klebig 2021; Wagner 2018). In international research on higher education, this educational strategy is often associated with elite universities (Karabel 2005; Maxwell and Aggleton 2015). However, this observation is not easily transferable to countries with a more egalitarian higher education landscape, such as Germany (Deppe et al. 2015; Kehm 2013). Nevertheless, the higher education sector in Germany has undergone significant changes since the turn of the millennium and changes of new vertical differentiation are still in the making. In this context, researchers often point to new forms of ‘vertical and horizontal differentiation’ in the field of higher education (Euler and Sporn 2018; Hüther and Krücken 2018). While vertical differentiation focuses on factors such as prestige, reputation, ranking or selectivity of higher education institutions, the concept of horizontal differentiation concentrates on institutional profiles, the diversity of bachelor and master programmes or different research schools (Clark 1978; Helsper et al. 2019; Lange-Vester 2016; Teichler 2020).

One of the new ways of vertically stratifying the higher education sector in Germany is the ‘Excellence Initiative’ launched by the German government in 2005 (Bloch et al. 2017; Kehm 2013). The primary objective of the Excellence Initiative was ‘to strengthen Germany as a location of excellent research, to enhance its international competitiveness, and to increase the visibility of top-level universities and research areas’ (Wissenschaftsrat 2022, 2). The Excellence Initiative has three lines of funding: (1) research-based ‘clusters of excellence’, (2) high-quality doctoral training in graduate schools, (3) the development of ‘future concepts’ that are eligible for further financial support as ‘universities of excellence’. In 2023, ten individual universities and one university network (Berlin University Alliance) have been awarded the status of a ‘university of excellence’. Critical academics, though, have questioned whether the Excellence Initiative artificially promotes the creation of ‘elite’ and ‘mass’ universities through politically motivated competition for economic and symbolic resources (Hartmann 2006; Münch 2014).

In addition, the importance of rankings has increased in Germany, although they have also been subject to considerable criticism within the scientific community (Kehm 2016). Particularly noteworthy is the ‘CHE University Ranking’ conducted by the Centre for Higher Education, which was introduced in 1998 and is primarily targeted at German students. The subject- related CHE University Ranking is based on multi-dimensional indicators and classifies universities into ‘ranking groups’ rather than specific ‘ranking positions’ (Hachmeister, Harde, and Langer 2007; Helbig and Ulbricht 2010). The focus on academic disciplines adds complexity to the ranking process, as universities are ranked differently in each subject.

Another trend towards vertical stratification in the last two decades has been the establishment of so-called ‘elite programmes’ in Germany (Klebig 2021), which we will also return to in our study. In this context, some study programmes have implemented specific selective admission procedures to stress the exclusivity of their courses (Bloch et al. 2015). Finally, the number of private universities in Germany has increased. However, this trend should be viewed with caution, as private universities do not necessarily adopt an elitist orientation (Mitterle, Reisz, and Stock 2018). It should also be mentioned that, at the same time, universities have become more inclusive. For example, regarding students with a migrant background or by offering special admission procedures for students without a general higher qualification for university entrance (Krüger et al. 2012).

Despite these trends, Germany's public universities differ significantly from elite universities in the United Kingdom or USA, with their high tuition fees, limited access and selective admission procedures (Bloch et al. 2017; Maxwell and Aggleton 2015). Public universities in Germany still have no access restrictions unless demand exceeds the number of places available. Consequently, access to limited programmes is mainly restricted by the numerus clausus system and entrance exams are still rare (Helbig and Ulbricht 2010). Furthermore, German public universities do not charge tuition fees, at least not for first degrees completed within the standard period of study. Germany thus provides an interesting case for investigating the importance of academic prestige for students’ educational strategies in the context of a historically egalitarian higher education system without traditional elite universities such as in the UK, the US or the hierarchical system in France described by Bourdieu (1996). The research interest of this article focuses on how the new forms of institutional hierarchisation and symbolic power, based primarily on the research performance of universities, influence the distinction strategies of the upper milieus.

As a consequence, our focus is not exclusively on elite education, but rather on exploring the status reproduction of upper milieus through education. Here we encounter a specific research desideratum, as international research on higher education mainly refers to ‘upper class’ or ‘elite students’ (for exceptions cf Bathmaker et al. 2016; Rollock et al. 2014). Yet, as we will see, there is also an overlap with elite education, which we also investigate. In this context, we refer to Vester's milieu model, which is based on Bourdieu's concepts of social space and habitus (Vester 2003). Bourdieu (1984; 1990) defined society as a social space compounded by different social ‘class fractions’, adding a horizontal differentiation to the vertical class hierarchy. Each part of the social space is related to a class-specific habitus. The habitus is the learned orientation towards the social world, defined by preferences, tastes, dispositions and practices, and is in its quality structured and structuring at the same time. Educational strategies are the result and effect of class-based habitus in the field of (higher) education. The advantage of Vester's model over Bourdieu's original approach is its sharper definition and layout of social space and social milieus, and its closer link between milieu and habitus.

In our study, we address the following research question: What is the relevance of university prestige for the educational strategies of students from upper milieus? To investigate this question, we conducted 95 qualitative interviews with master’s students from three academic disciplines (1) management/business administration, (2) medicine and (3) musicology.

Theoretical background

Our study draws on Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social reproduction and conflict. The sociologist argues that the ‘system of objective relations’ in the social space is a ‘field of struggle’ in which social positions are constantly being redefined in relation to each other (Bourdieu 1984). Consequently, when we refer to Bourdieu's theoretical concepts such as educational strategies, distinction, symbolic capital, field, or habitus, we perceive them not only as manifestations of an ongoing mechanism of social reproduction but also as highlighting the struggles between social milieus. As Bourdieu’s contribution to the investigation of higher education is already well established (Bathmaker 2015; Brown et al. 2016; Hüther and Krücken 2018), we will only outline some central concepts that are essential to our theoretical framework. In our definition of educational strategies, we refer to Bourdieu’s assumption that a ‘strategy’ refers to actors’ practical sense of the immanent logics of a ‘game’ in a given ‘field’ (Bourdieu 1990). Educational strategies do not necessarily have to be conscious or rationally calculated, rather Bourdieu assumes an often unconscious relationship between habitus and field (Bourdieu 1990). In addition, the ‘dominant class’ can invest more ‘capital’ in this ‘game’ (Bourdieu 1986). Thus, in our research project, we understand educational strategies as the individual, familial and collective strategies by which upper social milieus reproduce their position in the social space through education. Examples of educational strategies from our study that are beyond the scope of this article are new forms of student mobility (Schäfer and Walgenbach 2024), gaining professional experiences during studies, strategic combination of academic subjects or extra-curricular activities (Schäfer and Walgenbach 2024).

Bourdieu's conflict perspective also informs his concept of distinction. According to Bourdieu, the dominant class strives to distinguish itself from lower classes by claiming interpretive authority over systems of classification and social order (Bourdieu 1984). For Bourdieu, prestige, reputation, standing, etc. are forms of symbolic capital that acquire their authority, symbolic power and legitimacy only through recognition by social actors in a given field (Bourdieu 1990, 1996). Specifically, symbolic power makes economic, social and cultural capital valuable, recognised and normalised. According to Bourdieu, objective power relations are stabilised by symbolic power. This is manifested, for example, in the capacity of the dominant class to categorise and ‘make’ the social world, whether this means change or preservation. Symbolic power can occur in a variety of contexts, including interpersonal relations between actors and, most fundamentally, within institutional frameworks, with education being a prominent example (Bourdieu 2000).

Finally, we assume that educational strategies are also milieu-specific. In our definition of social milieu, we refer to Michael Vester's milieu model, which he constructed based on a quantitative study conducted in Germany (Vester 2003). Drawing on Bourdieu's concepts of social space and habitus, he identifies three types of habitus: The habitus of distinction (approximately 20 per cent of the German population), the habitus of aspiration (approx. 70 per cent) and the habitus of necessity (approx. 10 per cent).

Based on his quantitative data, Vester identifies eight different social milieus, which together form a milieu map. For example, the upper segment of the social space comprises three milieu fractions: the liberal-intellectual milieu, conservative technocratic milieu and postmodern milieu (Vester 2015, 149). In terms of capital configuration, the upper milieus are characterised by significant cultural and economic capital, as well as an exclusivity of social capital. Concerning their milieu-specific value orientations, they exhibit, for example, an explicit sense of success or humanistic orientations. In addition, the upper milieus are distinguished from the middle and lower milieus by a ‘line of distinction’ (Vester 2015, 149).

Study design

Our study is based on 95 qualitative interviews with German students at the master’s level (or equivalent level). Due to the structure of secondary education in Germany and its social selectivity (Neugebauer, Neumeyer, and Alesi 2016), our sample of university students already embodies a certain degree of social selection. The selection of participants was specifically limited to master’s students, as it was anticipated that distinctive educational strategies would be more pronounced at this specific stage of their academic trajectory. For example, the significance attached to choosing a university with a prestigious reputation may gain greater importance after accomplishing a bachelor’s degree.

Given our research question, it is crucial to emphasise that our sample selection was not limited to interviewees exclusively from ‘universities of excellence’, private universities, or German students from elite universities abroad. Instead, we intentionally recruited interviewees from various comprehensive universities to ensure a broader representation within our study. This also includes less prestigious ‘regional universities’ in Germany, that primarily attract local students. Our sample includes 17 ‘regional universities’, three ‘universities of excellence’, six universities with a highly recognised ‘disciplinary reputation’, three private universities and six universities abroad. These universities were specifically selected according to their status, which in the case of ‘disciplinary reputation’, was determined based on their ranking in the respective discipline and our interviewees’ assessment (self-perception of the field).

An exception to the selection criteria for comprehensive universities was made for music colleges, which have a high reputation in the field of musicology and were therefore included in the sample. However, the attempt to include business schools for the same reason was unsuccessful as no students could be recruited from those academic institutions. Within in the overall sample, 41 students were enrolled at public ‘regional universities’, 12 students at ‘universities of excellence’, 21 students at universities with a prestigious reputation in their field or discipline and 12 students at universities abroad. Further 9 interviewees studied at private universities.

To compare social milieus, we interviewed 48 upper milieu students, contrasting them with 47 middle and lower milieu students. The classification of students into upper, middle, and lower milieus was in reference to Vester's milieu model (Vester 2003, 2015). The model is very useful in the context of higher education, and has been used previously in student milieu research (Lange-Vester 2016). Since Vester’s approach is mainly quantitative, we developed a specific research design to operationalise students’ milieu categorisation with Bourdieu's concept of social space in mind:

• The vertical axis captures differences between upper, middle, and lower milieus. In our study, we determined this axis based on conventional social indicators such as parents’ net income and net worth, and parents’ highest level of education. We also used Vester’s classification of occupational groups (Vester 2014). In order to classify our interviewees into lower, middle and upper milieus, the educational level of the parents (higher, middle and primary education), combined with information on the parents’ occupational status and ‘qualification rank’ (according to Vester: academic professions, higher vocational education, skilled employees, unskilled workers/routine employees), was in most cases already a significant indicator of the respective milieu. In unclear cases, the net income was also taken into account.

• The horizontal axis reveals differences within the upper milieus. To operationalise this, the research design made use of an auxiliary construction by including students from three disciplines known for their significant rate of social reproduction (Multrus 2006) and their preparation of students for high-level occupational positions in the social space: (1) management/business administration, (2) medicine, and (3) musicology.

The underlying assumption posits a homology between the three disciplines and Bourdieu's upper part of the social space, as they embody different configurations of capital (Bourdieu 1984; Klebig 2021): management/business administration was included as an academic discipline in our study design in order to take into account the economic pole of the social space. However, it is important to note that this subject is also very popular among students from lower and middle milieus in order to achieve social mobility. Musicology, on the other hand, focuses more on cultural capital (Middendorf et al. 2017; Ramm and Multrus 2006). Medicine has the highest proportion of students from academic households in Germany (Kroher et al. 2023). In his study Distinction (1984) Bourdieu positions physicians as free ‘professions’ in the middle of his diagram of the social space ‘The medical and social services, drawn to a relatively large extent from the dominant class, are in a central position (…)’ (ibid., 123).

In conclusion, our research design acknowledges the distinct capital configuration of the upper milieus by also investigating intra-milieu divisions in the upper part of the social space. In our sample, 25 students are from management/business administration, 38 students from medicine and 32 students from musicology. Interviewees were recruited using flyers via Facebook groups and mailing lists.

The data collection method employed was the problem-centred interview, which combines narrative and problem-centred elements (Witzel and Reiter 2012). The interview began with open questions about various issues such as family, school or university experiences, followed by theoretical questions relating to Bourdieu's understanding of educational strategies. The more problem-centred questions also explored topics such as university selection, the perceived significance of university prestige, or participation in international activities. The analysis of the interviews was carried out using the documentary method, which goes beyond the verbal content of the interviews and incorporates the analysis of ‘implicit knowledge’ and habitual dimensions of the interviewees (Bohnsack 2014; Nohl 2010). The documentary method consists of several steps: ‘formulating interpretation’ (identifying topics in the interviewees’ accounts), ‘reflecting interpretation’ (considering how a topic is addressed), and comparative sequential analysis. Explicit and implicit knowledge, as well as orientations towards university choice and prestige, were singled out in our analysis, reconstructed in their meaning for educational strategies, and compared in terms of their similarities and differences between the cases.

Findings

During the interviews, our interviewees brought up the matters of university choice and academic prestige occasionally in connection with each other. The majority of students from the upper milieus discussed this relationship when emphasising the influence of institutional choice as an integral part of their educational strategies. However, students from the lower milieu in particular, and to a lesser extent students from the middle milieu, only raised these issues in response to direct questions. This suggests that these topics were not very relevant to them. The subsequent exploration of prestige at different academic levels primarily centres on the experiences of upper-milieu students, as they are the primary focus of this article.

Vertical stratification: rankings, university prestige and international orientation

Vertical stratification refers to differences in the symbolic, cultural and economic capital of universities, resulting in hierarchical positioning of institutions within the field of higher education (Bourdieu 1996). According to Canwell and Marginson, the growing demand for higher education has resulted in a global trend towards ‘system bifurcation’, with an elite ‘artisanal sector’ of predominantly research-intensive universities, opposed to a larger and undistinguished ‘demand-absorbing’ sector. They also identify a ‘middle layer’ of universities that aspire to move up the hierarchy but face systematic resource constraints (Cantwell and Marginson 2018). Helsper et al. (2019) use the term ‘vertical differentiation’ to describe the process by which different values are assigned to educational institutions, leading to a hierarchical structure within certain sub-sectors of the education system. While they refer to ‘elite education’ when educational institutions at the top of the hierarchy are capable of (a) establishing a distinctive branding for their institution, (b) recruiting an exclusive clientele through selective admission procedures with the promise of prestigious social positions in the future, and (c) constructing a special value for both their institution and their clientele (ibid., 253).

In our study, these processes of restructuring the higher education sector through vertical stratification are of particular interest to students from upper milieus who aspire to achieve a particularly high degree of distinction. These students represent a specific sub-group within the upper milieus. As will be shown, the way in which they effectively use the emerging forms of academic prestige in the German higher education system for their educational strategies is also closely related to their respective academic disciplines.

Universities of excellence

Regarding the Excellence Initiative in Germany, one might anticipate that students from the upper milieus would have a positive view of ‘universities of excellence’, as they might open up new opportunities for distinction through their choice of university. Interestingly, the majority of students in our study tend to assess the excellence status of a university through a critical lens. On the contrary, the designation as an ‘excellence university’ is perceived as a ‘negative counter-horizon’ in terms of the documentary method (Bohnsack 2014). This perception remains consistent even when the interviewees themselves are enrolled in such prestigious institutions:

The university of X has received its excellence status last year and, it has … Like, I am not sure if I can speak so negatively about the university. Like, my feeling is rather ‘Okay it is a university of excellence and I am rather angry about this’. First of all, I feel sense nothing from this prominently advertised excellence, because the funding eventually disappears somewhere else and definitely do not end up in teaching. (Livia, upper-milieu, musicology)

Similar views are expressed by upper-milieu students across all three disciplines. Their criticisms are in line with empirical evidence indicating that the status of a ‘university of excellence’ is primarily focused on research and does not necessarily translate to improved teaching (IEKE 2016). For the same reason, well-informed students have a more favourable view of ‘clusters of excellence’ within faculties, perceiving a direct correlation with excellent teaching, increased resources and better organisational support at departmental level. The designation of an ‘university of excellence’ is perceived positively only by students who have a clear intention of pursuing an academic career at their institution, thus considering research quality as a vital factor. Hence, their choice of university is motivated not by the status of a ‘university of excellence’ but rather by the attractive research conditions offered.

University rankings

More important than the excellent status of universities are university rankings for students from the upper milieus. These rankings encompass not only international university rankings like the ‘Shanghai Ranking’ or the ‘Times Higher Education World University Ranking’, but also the national CHE University Ranking mentioned above (Hachmeister, Harde, and Langer 2007).

I kind of, the universities that I chose were more like the (.) relatively established, larger universities in Germany, but there are quite a lot of them. So, it wouldn't have mattered at all if I'd studied in Munich, or Heidelberg, or Frankfurt. (Hannes, upper-milieu, management)

These three universities mentioned are among the best in Germany for management and also for other academic disciplines. In our sample, the orientation towards rankings is mainly found among students of management/business administration and, to a lesser extent, in medicine. This may be explained by the fact that the quantitative criteria underlying the rankings correspond with the logic of the management field, which heavily relies on quantifiable indicators, comparative measurements, and measurable outcomes (Vaara and Faÿ 2012). Furthermore, the field of management can be attributed to its relatively strong internationalisation (Bloch and Mitterle 2017) and its alignment with the hierarchical structures prevalent in Anglo-American higher education systems, which have historically been more stratified and provide a clearer matrix of symbolic power in higher education (Marginson 2016).

International vertical stratification

Particularly ambitious management students take advantage of the opportunities offered by the internationalisation of their field. When they choose universities with a global reputation and symbolic power, this is usually linked to conscious strategic considerations:

I want to focus on management and that lead me to finally to go to university Y. Now I’m right now here in the Strategy and International Management master, right. What influenced my decision was on the one side the focus, on the other side simply also the associated opportunities. The programme is very, very good ranked (laughs), for ten years number one now. And therefore I just anticipate further professional opportunities and the quality of teaching is obviously accordingly. (Lisette, upper-milieu, management)

Having obtained a bachelor’s degree from one of Germany's top universities, Lisette is extending her educational strategy to an international level by choosing a prestigious university known for its excellence in management studies for her master’s degree. A strength of this strategy lies in the combination of two institutional factors: the already high symbolic value of the university and its internationally renowned programme. This approach is particularly appealing to students who desire distinction through institutional recognition, especially if they perceive the German higher education system as lacking enough international vertical stratification to attain such an advantage. It is important to note that in this case, symbolic distinction is also marked by a clear financial divide. Lisette's chosen programme costs considerable tuition fees, whereas public universities in Germany, regardless of their rank and prestige, offer education free of charge.

Differences among disciplines

As our study demonstrates, the orientation towards rankings also varies depending on the different disciplines. Although the field of medicine exhibits less overt stratification compared to management studies, there are universities that are generally perceived as prestigious, as reflected in rankings and a high level of recognition of these universities among students (Chenot 2009). The academic discipline of medicine also differs from management studies in terms of students’ motivation to study abroad. In the case of German medical students, their motivation to select a university is scarcely influenced by an international ranking of universities. This tendency may be attributed to our finding that most medical students perceive a lower level of competition among their peers, as they have confidence in their excellent job prospects after graduation. Interestingly, studying abroad, may even be perceived negatively in the field of medical studies, when the university choice is primarily driven by the desire to bypass strict admissions restrictions, such as the numerus clausus in Germany (Gerhards and Németh 2015; Schäfer 2023). These students are sometimes confronted with the negative reputation of their universities, including accusations of corruption. In this case, studying abroad has little prestige and is likely to be symbolically devalued and disadvantaged. Rankings play a lesser role in musicology than in the other two disciplines. The CHE ranking does not even include musicology in its list of programmes. However, rigorous entrance exams are common in musicology and are particularly praised by students from upper milieus as a means of filtering out ‘unqualified’ applicants who ‘cannot read music’ (Jochen, upper-milieu, musicology). At the same time, Germany is strongly perceived as a very good place for musicology in a European context, which influences the relevance it attaches to international comparisons of universities.

Academic prestige configurations: departments, institutes and study programmes

In our problem-centred interview, we first asked an open question regarding the students’ choice of university, followed by a more focused question about whether the reputation of the university was an important factor in their decision-making process This allowed us to reconstruct an interesting finding from our material: It turned out that for most of our interviewed students the prestige of the university per se was not necessarily, or at least not exclusively, relevant for the students. Rather, their primary concern was the academic environment, which was associated with high expectations of supervision, teaching quality, professorial mentoring and peer stimulation. Instead of simplifying these multiple levels of academic prestige into a binary scheme of vertical and horizontal differentiation, it seems appropriate to us to conceptualise them as configurations of academic prestige.

Institutional levels of distinction

Academic prestige is associated by the students surveyed with different institutional levels of the university, including departments, institutes and study programmes. This may still include offerings of ‘elite education’, but at the level of study programmes. One example is the ‘Elite Graduate Program’ of the ‘Elite Network of Bavaria’, which was launched by the Free State of Bavaria in 2004 to promote ‘outstanding young talents’ through excellent study conditions. Such an ‘Honors Programme’ was for example an attractive offer for Tessa (upper-milieu, management), as she did not want to study very far away from home. While the Excellence Initiative in Germany operates at the federal level, in this case the state Bavaria (Bundesland) is shifting the locus of symbolic distinction from universities as institutions to particular degree programmes. For students from upper-milieus, such courses offer additional avenues of symbolic distinction that are related to new forms of vertical stratification.

In the field of medicine, there are specific programmes referred to as ‘model study courses’ typically provided by renowned medical universities. Over the last decade, these medical curricula have undergone structural revisions (Burger et al. 2019). Although not designed as elite courses, these flagship programs target students with high levels of academic achievements, who statistically tend to have high economic, cultural, and social capital. Another educational strategy employing horizontal differentiation is to opt for a bi-national programme that involves studying in two different countries and culminates in a double degree from two different universities. This option is particularly interesting for interviewees who already have a specific country focus, such as Jerome (musicology, upper milieu), who had spent a substantial amount of time in France before starting his studies.

Finally, some students rationalise their choice of university based on the opportunity to combine two disciplines.

I inform myself about […] what are the departments, like subjects they are researching or something like that. What could I further gain there? And here for example is just a lot of music theory additionally, where you can attend courses as a musicologist, what I just saw as an advantage and therefore I find the reputation not wrong, but it is by all means not a must. (Abby, upper-milieu, musicology)

Once again, the primary emphasis in selecting a university lies in the opportunities offered at the level of degree programmes or even the flexibility to combine modules. In these cases, the focus is mainly on pursuing one's own thematic interests and enriching one’s highly personalised academic profile, driven by intrinsic motivation and intellectual inspiration.

Department, supervision and teaching matters

From an organisational point of view, the department occupies a mediating position between the university and degree programmes. Although Germany has a comparatively egalitarian higher education system, significant differences in academic culture can still be observed between various faculties or institutes. In certain educational institutions, students from upper milieus are provided with optimal conditions to cultivate an academic habitus and reproduce their social position. This is also illustrated by the following example.

As discussed earlier, the status of ‘universities of excellence’ does not guarantee any quality of teaching or supervision, as pointed out by our interviewees. However, excellent study conditions and prestigious departments often correspond, as evident in numerous instances in our sample:

I do notice, because as I said all my siblings study medicine, all of them at different universities. I just notice an extreme gap in the quality of teaching. And also in supervision. Like, when I see how much we here in City U get organised, through the university and through the medical department especially of course. That is indeed tremendous. And it makes a lot easier for you. And you don’t believe that as a student: I also sometimes heard from particular lecturers who come from other universities or the like, they always say ‘Yes, you students from City U, you are always sometimes special, well educated, you always know already a lot in your studies. (Kathi, upper-milieu, medicine)

In this particular case, the university is widely recognised for its excellence in both medicine and academia as a whole. Through direct comparison with her siblings and friends, as well as acknowledgements from visiting lecturers, Kathi becomes acutely aware of the high quality of her studies, further affirming the university's reputation. However, this quote does not emphasise the symbolic power of the department or university but focuses on the teaching advantages. In this way, the narrative tends to obscure symbolic power by focusing on the teaching, thereby concealing even more the relative arbitrary power of such prestige and anchors it explicitly in the idea of meritocracy. Yet the reciprocal dynamic between prestige and quality, comparable to the Matthew effect (Merton, 1968), often means that faculties with a strong reputation can more easily find additional financial and human resources to improve teaching quality.

Challenging environments

It is not the quality of teaching alone that attracts students from upper milieus to places with a more exclusive level of academic prestige, but a challenging environment where they imagine the brightest minds gathering to push each other to new heights (Finger 2022). According to our interviewees, a challenging academic environment is characterised by participation in endeavours that push boundaries and cultivate the mindset required to pursue an exceptional educational career:

[If you] try to understand the world, then it has to be an awesome university. Then it sadly cannot be an environment, where all [students] go to, because they need a degree somehow, but where everyone inspires each other and people fancy studying and burn for their topic area. (Ella, upper-milieu, management)

As this quote makes clear, it is also the presence of like-minded peers that is expected to contribute substantially to the academic prestige of a challenging environment. These peers are expected to serve as a constant source of comparison and mutual stimulation, inspiring students to surpass their own academic achievements. The underlying assumption, shared by many upper-milieu interviewees, is that prestigious universities are the ultimate breeding ground for encountering such motivated peers who will support one's ambitions and encourage personal, academic, and professional growth. This perspective challenges the idea that a university's symbolic capital is based solely on its historical reputation. Instead, it expands the concept of academic prestige to encompass the dynamic and enriching exchanges among students and faculty members (Bathmaker 2015).

Discussion and conclusion

The reconfiguration of the field of higher education in Germany since the beginning of the millennium has opened up new opportunities of distinction for students from the upper milieus. These include the establishment of ‘universities of excellence’, the implementation of rankings, the formation of regional elite networks, and the introduction of Bachelor's and Master's programmes, that allow more flexible combinations of degrees, subjects, or modules. As demonstrated, the academic prestige of universities, departments and institutes unfolds at different levels of the institution through the collective efforts of students, lecturers, peers, professors, alumni and even administrative staff. At each of these institutional levels there are various avenues for re-establishing the ‘structure of distances’ in the social space.

Contrary to our initial theoretical assumptions (cf. Hazelkorn 2015), the reputation of a university itself does not hold as much significance for upper-milieu students as we anticipated. In contrast, our interviewees tend to regard new forms of vertical stratification, like the Excellence Initiative, with scepticism. Insofar our student participants agree with previous research (Fischer and Kampkötter 2017), which shows a university's excellence status has greater influence on its perceived symbolic prestige than on its actual improvement of teaching quality. This could be attributed not only to the fact that ‘universities of excellence’ receive funding for research, not for excellent teaching, but also to the historically motivated distance from the concept of elitism in Germany, as mentioned above.

Instead, the students interviewed place greater emphasis on the quality of teaching and supervision in the departments. Thus, in terms of educational strategies, in our sample it is the challenging academic environment of the departments that students emphasise as a decisive factor in their choice of university. This influence goes beyond the symbolic capital associated with a prestigious university name on a diploma. From the students point of view, these institutions become a transformative space that shapes them into responsible and confident graduates. Students value the academic quality and competitiveness they experience within these departments. It instils in them a sense of self-assurance, knowing that they have undergone a rigorous academic journey that may be less challenging elsewhere (Gamsu 2019). This demanding academic culture includes, for example, innovative and up-to-date theorisation in management, specialised learning practices in medicine, or research and project-based teaching in musicology (cf. Brown et al. 2016).

The academic quality gives students from upper milieus an implicit advantage over their peers in less demanding faculties, as ‘soft’ employability currencies (communication skills, confidence, resilience, adaptability) gain prominence over traditional ‘hard currencies’ such as degrees in times of higher education expansion (Brown et al. 2016, 193; Huijts and Kolster 2021). At the same time, the sole reference to the quality of academic teaching by students of upper milieus can obscure the privileged conditions of study that are only accessible through the investment of economic, cultural and social capital. The relatively greater emphasis on the impact of departments rather than the symbolic power of universities, may again be attributed to the more egalitarian structure of the German higher education system.

However, it is important to note that not all upper-milieu students in our sample adopt this approach. Students from upper milieus are not a homogeneous group. As we have seen, the vertical stratification of the higher education sector, manifested in rankings or internationally prestigious universities, is particularly attractive to management students from families with high economic capital. Moreover, the majority of students in our sample balance their educational strategies with a clear regional orientation. They maintain strong ties to their hometown or region due to personal relationships with family and friends (Borschel et al. 2019), even when they are aware of potentially more prestigious options elsewhere. An exception to this are the more ambitious students, who are more likely to explore opportunities in distant places, and who’s willingness and ability for mobility accelerates during their academic trajectory (Schäfer 2022). This is consistent with previous research indicating that there is a positive correlation between a wider spatial horizon for studying and better academic performance (Helbig and Ulbricht 2010).

Finally, it can be noted that new forms of vertical stratification, along with a diversification of educational programmes, produce a ‘new lack of clarity’ (Helsper et al. 2019, 261) in the German higher education system, for which students from the upper milieus are much better prepared than their colleagues from other milieus. A notable contrast emerges among students from upper, middle, and lower milieus when examining their knowledge of academic prestige. Non-academic students in our sample typically lack awareness of higher education institutions stratification at the start of their studies, but gain this knowledge later on, leading to a strong emphasis on university prestige at the end of their studies, possibly because they perceive their own educational path as lacking in comparison. Usually, it is too late for them to adapt their educational strategies at this stage because the costs of a late change would be too high (cf. Ball et al. 2002). In contrast, students from upper milieus already possess a comprehensive understanding of prestigious universities from the outset (Wagner 2018). The new lack of clarity thus gives students from the upper milieus an advantage, as they have the necessary resources to deal adequately with the complexity of the academic prestige configuration and to identity those places that advantage their further academic and professional career.

At the same time, students from lower milieus talk about prestigious universities, which they did not attend, with a certain distance and respect, reflecting the social discrepancies in their studies in their professional life: ‘People who studied in M (prestigious university in management) will become most likely my superiors, yes? Yes, with high probability’ (Baris, lower milieu, management). The acceptance of certain status differences that will continue into their professional careers is a form of amor fati (Bourdieu 2000), where distinctions and power relations are naturalised. In particular, students from lower milieus, whose parents have little or no formal education, are simply happy and content to be studying at a university at all, regardless of its specific position in their field of study or its overall prestige. Intra-generational educational mobility is slow (Lange-Vester 2016), and the aspirations of students from lower milieus are modest in a world where they still feel comparatively more doubtful (‘Now the worries are there and somehow you don't talk to the others so much and then you still have these worries’ – Otillia, lower milieu, medicine). Therefore, their choice of higher education is guided by other, mostly non-academic, factors that seem relevant to them:

So at the moment it would be more important to me that, you know, that the people are likeable, that perhaps the flats in the city or in the surrounding area are cheap, that the structure of the degree programme is favourable, so it's more the framework conditions, not the university itself, I think. (Ottilia, lower milieu, medicine)

Students from lower and middle milieus are more likely to choose their places of study on the basis of proximity to their hometowns or regions without further distinction-seeking as with the regional educational strategies of upper milieus students, because studying itself becomes a step into unknown territory, which leads them to minimise further changes. Although the awareness of institutional differences may grow during the course of studies, it does not fully translate into deeper changes in their educational strategy:

So of course I made sure that there were good ratings, but the outside was just as important to me. So it was, what’s the city like and what opportunities do I have, because I wasn’t bad, but I just don’t have the ambition to say, I’ll get myself to the level where I’m at an elite university. (Maria, middle milieus, management)

Furthermore, a distinction based on international vertical stratification, as the analysis showed for management students from the upper milieus, is not a viable option for management students from the lower milieus, who cannot realise international student mobility in the same way due to time and financial constraints (Schäfer and Walgenbach 2024).

In summary, the particular significance of our study lies in its analysis of the relevance of academic prestige for the educational strategies of the upper milieus. With this approach, we aim to contribute to the empirical and theoretical discourse within higher education research on upper milieu students, as we do not focus solely on elite education, but rather explore the status reproduction of upper milieus through education. Furthermore, we expect our research design to contribute to previous quantitative studies on motivations for university choice (Hemsley-Brown and Oplatka 2015 for a meta review). A substantial theoretical contribution of our study is the introduction of the concept of ‘academic prestige configurations’. Based on our qualitative study, we can conclude that the prestige of a university cannot be adequately captured by conventional stratification models, such as the classic macro, meso and micro levels, especially when examining the educational strategies of upper milieus. Moreover, common schemes that distinguish between vertical and horizontal differentiation also fall short of understanding the new modes of distinction in the current field of German higher education. Considering these constraints, the notion of ‘academic prestige configuration’ seems to be a more appropriate approach to capture the complex constellations at work in this context. Finally, such a concept could also be linked to Bourdieu's relational theory, which assumes a homologous correspondence between the objective structures of the social world, the social positions of privileged actors and their cognitive and mental dispositions (Bourdieu 1996).

Our study’s limitations are based on the fact that we only examined three different disciplines. Each represents in our study design a specific configuration of capital, habitus and position in the social space (Bourdieu 1984). But the three disciplines also have their own very specific academic trajectories and historical, structural and institutional peculiarities, which certainly do not cover all the diversity of subjects and study programmes. Symbolic power dynamics at other institutional levels, and their integration into students’ educational strategies, may exist in unexplored disciplines, particularly those with fundamentally different organisational structures.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [grant number 410861124].