Support system in need of thorough reform, student union says

Education ministry praise of progress made in providing student support has been scorned by Germany’s fzs student union, which referred to an “extraordinarily positive presentation” of what it sees as a “downward trend” in grants and loans in recent years.

Citing statistics on grants and loans provided via the federal government BAföG – Bundesausbildungsförderungsgesetz – system, recently published by the Federal Statistical Office of Germany, Education Minister Anja Karliczek said that BAföG had proved to be effective and robust in difficult times.

BAföG was introduced in 1971 to promote equal opportunities in education. It offers financial support in the form of a combination of grants and loans to students – at universities and schools as well as vocational colleges – who have been needs-tested.

“With the 2019 reforms of the BAföG system, we laid the foundations for BAföG to operate, even in the pandemic with all its restrictions, as a reliable and flexible tool in providing young people with access to good education,” Karliczek said.

“I am delighted to see that the average support level has once again risen, and this ought to underline anew the attractiveness of BAföG.”

The Statistical Office’s assessment of BAföG trends in 2020 is rather less upbeat and refers to fewer recipients compared to the previous year, despite more money being spent. The overall number of 639,000 recipients across all education institutions represented a drop by 41,000 or 6%, whereas expenditure had risen by 9.2% to around €2.9 billion (US$3.4 billion).

Germany’s student population was 2,948,700 as of the 2020-21 winter semester, having seen an increase of 2% compared to the 2019-20 winter semester.

A total of 466,000 higher education students received BAföG in 2020, 4.9% fewer than in 2018, although expenditure on student support was €2.2 billion, up by €256 million compared to 2019. On average, students received €574 a month, €60 more than in the previous year.

Absolute numbers of student BAföG recipients peaked in 2012 but have since seen a steady decline.

The freier zusammenschluss von student*innenschaften (fzs) – which represents the political, social and economic interests of around 900,000 students at 93 universities in Germany – sees the renewed drop in the number of BAföG recipients as a clear sign of the need for a thorough reform of the government support system as a whole.

Board member at fzs Carlotta Kühnemann maintained that this is all the more pertinent given that hundreds of thousands of students have run into financial difficulties because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Mere adjustments won’t do,” Kühnemann said. “A fundamental restructuring of the system is needed.” The fzs is also critical of support levels, which it claims are nowhere near sufficient to cover the cost of living.