Welcome foreign students, Germany has abolished Tuition Fees. Hmm..is it true?

For the last few months we have read in many medias worldwide that Germany now is welcoming foreign students by abolishing tuition fees. Is that true?

Well, those news are actually a bit misleading. Germany has been always welcoming foreign students, well.. ‘every students’ is actually the better term to use as Germany has never differenciated the students based on their nationality anyway. What germans students get, the foreign students enjoy them too. The only thing the foreign student couldn’t get is only “the student loan”. Even the right to do part time jobs outside the campus is given to every students regardless their nationality background, with the same time limit for everyone!
Which is: maximum 20 hours per weeks in lecture periods and no limit in Semester holidays. How much money you earn with your activity doesn’t make any difference. If you’re lucky enough and very high qualified to earn much within that period, it is completely fine. The only problem is, started by 450€ monthly income and you have to be aware of your tax report thingy ;).

So this is the History of German’s Tuition Fees:

In Germany the universities are completely autonom and education in general is not the nation’s business, it is state’s business. The federal states here are free to determine their own policy about education system. So there are difference condition too in each states here related to tuition fees issue. 1998 Baden-Württemberg demand Tuition Fees from Students who study too long (over the average period) which was sued in Federal Constitutional Court by Red-Green Coalition based on “the right of freedom in obtaining education” which ended up to a free education for the first study. Some states have sued again using “autonomy rights of the states in education matter” as a reason. So since 2002 some states in germany have started charging tuition fees to the amount of around 500€/Semester. That’s actually quite modest compares to the tuition fees in other developed countries especially when we consider that this is including free right in using public transport in the whole areas of the state where the students live and it doesn’t differenciate the nationality either. Neverthless this policy was hardly opposed by the citizen and finally… many different states in germany regarding which coalition reign there were starting to drop this tuition fees one by one. For example in Saarland, the state where i live now, since Wintersemester 2007/2008 the tuition fees has been charged with the amount of 500€/Semester ==> 300€ for the Startingsemester. But since “die Grüne” (the green party) was needed by the winner of the state’s election to build a coalition, who was campaigning for free education, then since 2010 they hasn’t charged tuition fees anymore. Lucky me, i started my study exactly at Wintersemester 2010 :-D. (Sometimes i think, you don’t need to be the election winner to do something and fight for your project. I wonder when indonesian minority party has gut to speak up for their ideology for the sake of their voters and citizens instead of just swimming with the flows always).

Back to the topic… Not only Saarland has abolished the tuition fees.. but the others actually followed right after it. Hesse had even dropped it again only a year after they once decided to charge tuition fees. (Note: in Hamburg the tuition fee was charged not during the study but after they actually finished the study)

So actually the correct news would be :”Lower Saxony has finally decided to follow the other states in Germany to abolish the tuition fees. The recent situation is that no state in germany is charging tuition fees for students with normal/average studying period. There is now only tuition fees for people who takes 4-6 semesters longer than the average to finish the study and for the second grade (people who have once got a degree in one major and want to get another degree in another major) with an amount of 400-650€ per semester. However, i know some students who is still studying after more than 12 semesters and still hasn’t paid anything at all till today here :-D. So well… it seems like this regulation for “lazy students” is not that strict LOL. Another notes: In Germany the university degree is quite hard to get, the KO-System is pretty depressing so that the failure quote here is high..aroung 40% – 55% depending on the majors you take. So if you failed in one major and want to start another major, you still won’t be charged tuition fees until you get at least one degree :-D.

Somehow…most courses in Germany are taught in Germans, there are only  small number of choices for courses in english, so you better start learning germans until advance level (C1 Niveau) if you’re really interested to get german degrees. Next time i will write the procedure in getting Student Visa.

Good Luck 😉 !

You can see things as “problems” or “opportunities” depending on which mindset you have

In chinese the word “危机” could mean both:
“Danger/threat/crisis”, in a milder sense one could say: “Problem” and the other would be “Opportunity”.
So according to chinese philosophy: chinese see Problem as Opportunity,
that’s one of the reason why they are very fastly moving forward in economy (in general).

Yeah… make sense… Losers see problem as an excuse for not doing anything, complaining and finding the black sheep for everything instead of thinking to find at least an idea for a solution .
Would it be a good idea or not, that’s not the critical point.
But positive oriented mindset would at least have something to start with it. Every errors occur while applying it, could always be corrected during the process.
On the other hand, the ones who have too much fear of change and only want to avoid problem instead of facing it, will never have a start of anything. And this people will never move forward .
Hmmmmm… which one are we prefer to be ?

Where could we find help for Domestic Violence and any kind of Abuse?

Women could be as intelligent as men, but phisically we’re still weaker than them. That’s exactly the reason why the risk of getting abused quite big. Patriarch Culture which exist in most culture int he world, even if there is already a lot of improvement at many level in many countries brings possibility of getting a physical, verbal and even mental abuse which could bring enough destruction to women’s life.
So we need to be a ware of it and know where to find help wherever we live, especially because we may not always live around our family and our loving bestfriends.
Even if we do, they may not always be able to be there when we need for some reason. However, the existence of friends is always important, especially for people like us who live abroad and please don’t limit your selves by only searching friends from your own community, because it’s not always possible. Friends are friends, whoever they are, whereever they come from and what kind of religion they have, they could help us and will care about us in some way that we couldn’t imagine sometimes.
No matter how loving our partner may seem, there is still a possibility that people change, and our evaluation could be wrong as well, so even if we think that our partner is our best friend (which shouldn’t be wrong either ;)), but to have our own friend is never bad.
No matter how many tips we’ve learnt, and how careful we are, mistakes could always happen.
Tidak semua sifat abusive bisa dilihat dengan mudah pada awal-awal hubungan. If a partner from our own culture, own country, with the same religion and have been together quite long could still deceive us.. then of course the risk with a partner mit whom we have had a long distance relationship or with a really short premarital relationship is much bigger.
So we must inform our selves as much as possible about the law system related to mix marriage, the culture, and women/children protection system there before we decide to move out to another country.
Networking is of course very useful as well.
Here are some contact number and adresse of the women center in Eurepe, Australian and USA that you can call, whenever you have the problem or you know somebody who need help:
1.http://www.apwcla.org/
2.EUREPE:

http://www.hotpeachpages.net/europe/europe1.html#UK

3.Germany:

http://www.caritas-spenden-berlin.de/62147.asp

http://www.frauennotruf-saarland.de/

http://www.saarland.de/SID-8C11419D-4EED6EF7/3295.htm

http://www.frauen-info-netz.de/

4.France: http://www.counsellinginfrance.com/whereto/violence.htm
5.South Australia
-Government:http://www.sa.gov.au/subject/Emergency%2C+safety+and+infrastructure/Safety+at+home+and+in+the+community/Domestic+violence
-Ombudsman nya Gov. Australia. http://www.ombudsman.nt.gov.au/agencies/domestic-violence/ -DV Resource Centre Victoria http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Domestic_violence_why_men_abuse_women?open
– http://au.reachout.com/find/articles/domestic-violence-getting-help

– info ttg Crisis Payment buat yang mengalamin DV.

http://www.womenscouncil.com.au/centrelink-crisis-payment.html

– http://www.hotpeachpages.net/auspac/aus1.html
6.USA:

http://www.helpguide.org/mental/domestic_violence_abuse_help_treatment_prevention.htm

http://www.nrcdv.org/

Please don’t underestimate this, it doesn’t have to be your own problem, it could be someone you know and you may safe their life with information that you have.
Sometimes women want to hold on in this suffering for some reason.. but please just be rational:
1. Love never hurt, Love should be a gift which makes us grateful, and not cry. When your love makes you cry over and over again.. then you should reconsiderate again if it still worth to keep.
2. Money is not everything, don’t scare of future. People in women center could help us to show how to survive. Even to fight on court for our right. Life may not be easy, but we’ll survive if we really want to survive. But if we give up, then it’s really the end. And it could be the end of your children too.
3. There are many asian women who do not want to walk away because of children, it’s not right.

Unhealthy relationship between parents will never be a good home to raise children. Imagine what kind of teaching you give them with those kind of family living, you will only give them a negative influence in their life, a trauma could kill hope and beauty in their dream of future, i mean.. dream of a real love.. i say could, doesn’t mean always.. but you should be aware that the risk is quite big. And last but not least… how can you raise them and keep them happy if you finally die, because you couldn’t find enough courage to safe your life and walk away? If you die, you’ll lose them anyway for a bad father.. but if you fight.. you still have chance to save them..
Don’t worry, if you have made your children indonesian passport as well, then you could ask a protection for your children too from our government. Without indonesian passport, you have less right to bring them home, so don’t underestimate your own passport. You never know when you will need them. If you still decide to keep it, then we should respect it. But if we’re no longer indonesian anymore.. it could be more simple… cos we’re living under one law. It would be complicated if we’re still indonesian, and we do not follow the regulation and do not concern enough about it. Cos there is a danger that we couldn’t bring our children with us if something bad happen. We never know what happen in the future.
No law will give children to abusive parent. You just need to have a case, of course a legitimate case and you’ll get them. But if you contact the authority at the right time and with the correct reason, i think you’ll have good position on court.
So, if you find this terrible situation.. seek help, you can’t solve it alone. And neither does your partner, even if he wants it. People who are abusive are sick, and they need help.. if they really love,they will agree to seek help and cooperate.. but if they don’t.. then they deserve the punishment.. the vistims deserve a new life.
Fight for your life and your happines..

There is NO ARGUMENT of violence, no matter who do that or where!

Courtesy of: All friends who have been also active in this discussion in Komunitas Kawin Campur
If anybody has an additional data, please contact me, so that i can update our document. Thanks.