The big problem of students in Germany: the housing crisis

The aggravation of the housing crisis in Germany has made tens of thousands of students unable to find suitable student housing for the start of the new academic year. Meanwhile, international students face more problems than local students. In this article, we will examine one of the biggest problems of international students in Germany.

The head of the German Students Association described the lack of suitable student accommodation as a “deplorable situation”.

With the cold weather and the start of the winter semester of universities in Germany, tens of thousands of undergraduate and graduate students are facing the problem of lack of suitable housing and affordable student dormitories for long-term stay during their studies.

As a sign of the bad accommodation conditions for international students to study in Germany, we can mention the renting of a hotel in the city of Göttingen by the student association of that city, where international students who immigrate to Germany through education can stay in the first weeks of the semester. study at reduced rates. In the southern German city of Munich, where students pay an average of 720 euros ($760) per month for student accommodation, a camping site has made it possible for students to stay at lower and affordable rates.

In early 2023, a study by the Eduard Pestel Research Institute revealed that there is a shortage of more than 700,000 affordable apartments with reasonable student rates in Germany. According to this research, rents have increased in all cities and significantly in large university cities in Germany.
Matthias Anbuhl, head of the German Student Association (DSW), said in a statement published on October 16, 2023 (24 Mehr 1402), that the lack of affordable housing for students in Germany’s big cities has been a “deplorable situation” for decades. The president of the student association DSW currently manages 1,700 dormitories throughout Germany with around 196,000 places and more than 32,000 students on the waiting list for student accommodation.

Couch surfing and long commutes every day

Merlin, a 22-year-old freshman sitting with his laptop on an old sofa on Berlin’s Free University (FU) campus, has been unable to find a room in an apartment and is currently torn between his parents’ house in Kleinmachnow in It is frequented outside the city of Berlin and her aunt’s house is near the university campus. Merlin says:

“I can pay up to 500 euros per month for student accommodation, but I can’t find a house even with this cost.”
Talina, a 21-year-old veterinary science student in another seat, says she was given just one month to vacate her apartment in August 2023 to prepare it for a family. .

His classmate Eli, 21, who lives in a rented house owned by another tenant, will have to find somewhere else to live before the end of 2023.

Studying and living in Germany will not be easy: according to research by the Moses Mendelssohn Institute and the flatshare platform wg-gesucht.de. The cost of renting a room in a shared apartment in Berlin has doubled over the past decade to 650 euros, 100 euros more than last year. Currently the student allowance under the Federal Student Loan and Grant scheme for student accommodation (BAföG) is around €360.

Around 200,000 students have applied for student accommodation, while the association has 9,000 beds and 4,900 students on its waiting list, Jana Judisch, spokeswoman for the Berlin Student Association, told DW. Currently, the waiting time to find a student dormitory is about 3 semesters. “Many students have moved to the outskirts of the city and even beyond to Brandenburg, and have to commute frequently and constantly between the university and their residence every day,” Judish said.

Carla, a 30-year-old language student at Berlin’s Free University (FU), rolls a cigarette in the autumn sunshine, says she is one of the lucky students. He found the apartment suite suitable for his stay a few years ago, when the rent was much lower than now and it was possible to rent or buy property in Germany at lower prices. But now everything has changed. “We had students who rented rooms in our suite and had to sleep on our couches and sofas because they couldn’t find anywhere else to stay,” he says. According to immigration news, “Couch surfing” is a kind of cheap accommodation in someone else’s house with a simple place to sleep on a couch. “Long commutes are frequent and daily trips between the student accommodation and the university.”

The impact of lack of housing on international students

In his office at Berlin’s Free University (FU), Thomas Schmidt, representative of social affairs at the General Student Committee (AStA), says that finding suitable student housing in German universities is one of the most common problems that students turn to the AStA for. they do.

“Some students can rent a place using a financial guarantee from their parents, but this is almost impossible, especially for international students, because they often cannot provide such a guarantee,” Schmidt told DW. He plans to ask the Berlin Senate for more funding, especially for the construction and development of student accommodation, along with ambitious political plans such as the reinstatement of the rent cap to help lower rents for all citizens of the city of Berlin.

According to Stefan Grob, Deputy General Secretary of DSW, the number of students in Germany has increased by 1 million to around 2.9 million in the last 12 to 15 years. But the investment in the social infrastructure necessary to deal with the increase in the number of students has not been done. “We are afraid that society will go in a direction where the rich can study wherever they want and at whatever cost they can and rent student housing, while the poor and the middle class of society are not living in the same place,” Grub told DW. “They can’t, and that would be disastrous because then money would determine where people should study and where not, and intelligence and talent would have no role in this situation.”

The commitment of the German government to invest in housing

While the German student association DSW plans to increase the monthly housing allowance as part of the BAföG federal student loans and grants scheme, it admits that only 10% to 11% of students are eligible for BAföG. To help ease the situation, Germany’s coalition government announced a federal subsidy of €500 million in 2023 (1402) as part of the “Junges Wohnen” youth housing scheme to provide more affordable housing for students, apprentices and trainee police officers. Provide.

The German Ministry of Housing, Urban Planning and Construction announced that according to this plan, the subsidy of 500 million dollars will be paid again in 2024 (1402-1403) and 2025 (1403-1404). The move has been welcomed by DSW, but it will not help the thousands of students who are currently struggling to find accommodation and shelter for the cold winter days.

He added: “Students compete with other social groups for student accommodation, such as the elderly, young families, low-income people, refugees, etc. In fact, what we are talking about is not only the problem of the higher education system, in In fact, it is a social problem.”

Conclusion

One of the most important concerns of studying in foreign universities, especially in Germany, is finding a dormitory or student accommodation at a reasonable price. The increase in the number of international students as well as the lack of housing for German citizens has made finding student housing in this country a big problem. If you are planning to study in German universities and you don’t know where to start, the immigration advisors and lawyers of Istehbanati Immigration Institute will provide you with useful and helpful guidance. The lawyers and consultants of this prestigious immigration institution, with knowledge of the latest laws of educational immigration to Germany, provide all the necessary conditions for obtaining study admission and student visa and stay by your side until you leave for this country.