(Center for Public Policy Research Papers Series, 2014) Kościelniak, Cezary
At the turn of the second decade of XXI century student protests across Europe gained new momentum. Their direct, although not the only, cause was an increasingly restrictive financial policy adopted in the higher education sector which had a direct impact on students. Protests are also initiated in reaction to other issues and „meritocratic” protests are not rare, e.g. in Germany, where students protested against the oversimplification of curricula, low education quality, crowded lecture halls, etc. Protests take various forms and they may be of symbolic character, as it was in Florence, Italy, where students took over the Brunelleschi's dome, or in Rome, where students organised a massive, day long demonstration which resembled the alter-globalist protests during G8 summits.