The reforms of 1901 were not a success. They combined the worst features of the VDI's program and that of the BIE: a reduction in the number of LMBSs – schools that were in fact quite satisfactory – whereas admissions to the increased number of HMBSs were not substantially relaxed. The net effect was that access to nonacademic engineering education in Prussia became more difficult. The technische Hochschulen and the proprietary schools meanwhile had taken in ever more students, resulting in a glut of engineers after the turn of the century. Persistent underenrollment at Prussia's MBSs and doubts about their survival were the consequence.

To promote its schools, the BIE soon embarked on a course of additional reforms. Blaming stagnation on the VDI, the government tried hard to avoid renewed interference from the engineering society. It adopted a policy of reducing the admission standards and upgrading the career goals of the MBSs – in effect borrowing from the VDI's design for the HMBSs without acknowledging it. Even before these plans could be fully implemented, they provoked an unexpected backlash from a side largely forgotten in the rush to increase the output of technically trained personnel: the segment of engineering professionalizes seeking assimilation with the Bildungsbilrgertum. The tensions created by the resurgence of this party, on the defensive ever since the late 1870s, forced the government and the VDI's managerial leadership into a compromise.