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 😉 !
Kobold Jawa 