It should be noted here, that in the past (10-20 years ago), Germany did not have any tuition fees ... and fared very well with this model for many decades.

Only lately, because the German govnmt wanted to save the costs for the universities, they invented the fees with the argument, that with more funding, the quality of education could be better. But many universities just used the money to cover costs, that where not covered any more from the money they got from the country.

So, essentially it was a cost reduction program to reduce costs for the state finance ... thus freeing money that could go to banks and big companies.

The system was not well received by the students and also some German countries dropped the program, thus putting some pressure on the others, since the students prefered the universities without fees. I guess, that was the reason now, that the last country dropped the fees.

In my opinion, countries like GB make a big error by forcing enormous fees unto students. In the result, the students which do not come from millionaires houses are either at the mercy of the banks for decades or many people that well could study, just do not. Thus the nation looses many talents (in both outcomes).