Regarding the federal government’s agreement on BAföG, Matthias Anbuhl, CEO of the Deutsches Studierendenwerk, states:
“After months of uncertainty and waiting, today’s agreement by the federal government on specific increases and improvements to the BAföG is a positive and important sign. Students need reliability; this agreement must now be upheld. The government’s back-and-forth over the BAföG must end.”
However, there is one major downside. The BAföG housing allowance will likely not be increased until the summer semester of 2027, rather than the winter semester of 2026/2027 as originally promised. Current students are in a bind. They’ll have to get by for another semester with insufficient funding of 380 euros in a housing market that demands significantly higher average rents from them. A basic room in a shared apartment already costs 512 euros on average nationwide.
The automatic increase in the exemption thresholds promised in the coalition agreement is coming, as is the alignment of the BAföG basic needs allowance with the basic income support. This is important. It ensures that BAföG is increased reliably and regularly, rather than based on political trends, and that students receiving BAföG no longer have to feel like second-class citizens who eat, drink, or heat their homes less. There is a downside here as well: This measure will be implemented in two phases—and the full amount of the subsistence minimum will not be reached until the summer semester of 2029. Once again, the current generation of students is left behind.
The planned elimination of the academic performance requirement after the fourth semester removes an anachronism from the pre-Bologna era in the BAföG system.
“The simplification of the BAföG program—which has now also been officially announced—may not be very exciting to the general public, but it is enormously important for creating a simpler and more streamlined process. This is something that both students and the BAföG offices of the student services organizations need.”
