University's email glitch tells students they've been unenrolled

And you thought Dean Wormer of "Animal House" was cold-hearted. Double-secret probation is downright tame compared to this.

A university in Dresden, Germany, accidentally sent an email to all 37,000 of its students saying that they'd been unenrolled in the school. Boom. Just like that. No more learning for you. Imagine the number of students who did simultaneous spit-takes in front of their computers. Employees also received the message.

Not surprisingly, the email led to a flood of panicked responses from students who thought they'd been given the boot for reasons unknown. German news magazine Der Spiegel spoke to 19-year-old student Beatrix Augustin about her reaction. "I thought I had done something wrong," she told Spiegel Online.

Turns out, it was a computer snafu. According to The Local, students who took to social networks to express their confusion soon learned that they weren't alone and the email was most likely a mistake.

Via The Local:

"The dean must be hoping for shorter queues and caviar in the canteen," one user quipped online. "With this brave and well thought-out move we want to try to make Dresden an even more elite institution," another student wrote. A third called for free beer in compensation.

The university later apologized for the mistake. A spokesperson told Spiegel Online that the email went out to a total of 48,000 people.

Likely included in the list: the dean.