Federal student funding is reaching fewer and fewer students
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin The range of student loans has reached a new low: in 2020 only just under every ninth student received state aid. This is shown by the federal government’s new student loan report, which is available to the Handelsblatt. He is expected to be dealt with in the cabinet this Wednesday. Even the most recent amendment to student loans under the resigned grand coalition could not stop the decline.
Of the total of over 2.8 million students, only 1.75 million have the opportunity to submit an application. The others are dropped because they have exceeded the standard period of study, are too old or are studying part-time.
But even among those entitled, the proportion of those receiving funding has fallen from more than 27 to just 18.5 percent since 2010. It is only 15 percent of the college students. The expenditure for student loans, which the federal government now bears alone, has stagnated for a number of years at around 2.9 billion euros a year.
This increases the pressure on Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP) to quickly tackle the promised turnaround in student loans. According to the coalition agreement, it should become a central pillar for the promised “decade of educational opportunities”: Specifically, the allowances for parental income are to be increased significantly so that aid can again reach the offspring from the middle class.
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In addition, the traffic light coalition wants to raise the age limit significantly – so far the limit for Bachelor students is 30 years. Because the majority of students do not graduate within the standard period of study, the duration is to be extended.
The rates themselves should also be increased – mainly because of the rising housing costs. The maximum rate for students is currently 861 euros. The loan portion of 50 percent, or a maximum of 10,000 euros, should decrease. Bafög for part-time studies – for example for young parents – should at least be checked.
Experts and the Studentenwerk have been asking for all of this for a long time. The Center for Higher Education Development CHE explains the low funding rate by the fact that students at private universities – meanwhile nine percent – are excluded from student loans. And the group of part-time students alone now makes up eight percent.
Bafög “bypasses the reality of life”
“The now dramatic crisis of student loans does not depend on individual funding rates and allowances, it is fundamentally conceptual,” says Ulrich Müller from the CHE. “The original approach of the Bafög is still relevant: open doors, pave the way and create equal opportunities.”
The student loan, however, “clearly misses the reality of today’s generation of students”. In addition, the pandemic has shown that it is not crisis-proof, not designed to react flexibly to changed framework conditions.
When numerous part-time jobs, which are the most important source of funding for around two thirds of the students, were canceled due to Corona, the federal government had to create another financing instrument with its own funding conditions with the temporary “bridging aid”.
The CHE pleads for a big hit: the federal government should not only expand the student loan, but also at least combine it with the KfW student loan, the education loan and the bridging aid to form a flexible package. This is the only way to guarantee “fair participation in higher education in the long term”.
In the 2020 corona year, the number of student loans increased dramatically again
In the 2020 corona year, far more students than before were again forced to take out a loan: the number of newly concluded student loans rose from 33,000 to 50,000, according to the CHE survey. The largest part of this is accounted for by the state-owned KfW banking group. However, the CHE criticizes their student loan as extremely expensive and inflexible.
The Studentenwerk also calls for the swift implementation of the federal-state program for student housing, which was also announced in the coalition agreement. This should also benefit trainees so that they can also take up an apprenticeship position away from home. Tens of thousands of companies are currently unable to fill apprenticeships, and even more applicants are left empty-handed because the two cannot be located.
In addition, the student services’ psychosocial advice urgently needs to be expanded in order to mitigate the psychological consequences of the pandemic for the students, said the President of the Studentenwerk, Rolf-Dieter Postlep. “During the pandemic, the students showed their solidarity with the elderly and other vulnerable groups in our society. Now they need the support of the federal and state governments, ”he said.
More: Today’s students and trainees are tomorrow’s skilled workers