DSW: Dramatically more expensive shared apartments for students

DSW: Dramatically more expensive shared apartments for students: State must counteract

• New "Hochschulstädtescoring 2022" of Moses Mendelssohn Institute and the portal WG-Gesucht.de
• Dramatic rent increase makes shared apartments more expensive for students
• In 59 university cities, the average rent for a room in a shared apartment is above the BAföG rate of €360.
• Deutsches Studentenwerk (DSW): Rise in rents poses existential problems for students
• DSW Secretary General Matthias Anbuhl: "The state must take countermeasures, first with a rapid BAföG increase".
• Anbuhl: The student unions also need more state aid to be able to limit the rent increase in their halls of residence

Berlin, 8 September 2022. For Deutsches Studentenwerk (DSW), the federation of the student unions, the today published "Hochschulstädtescoring 2022" of the Moses Mendelssohn Institut and the portal WG-Gesucht.de is a clear alarm signal that the Federal Government must bring a further increase of the BAföG requirement rates on the way as soon as possible, so that students on the private housing market can still afford a room in a shared apartment.

As the study shows, the average rent for a room in a shared apartment in 59 of the university cities surveyed, where almost two-thirds of all students live, is higher than the BAföG rate for housing costs, which is currently €360. In Munich, Germany's most expensive university city, students have to pay almost twice as much on average for a shared room: €700 a month.

DSW Secretary General Matthias Anbuhl comments:
"The new data show how alarmingly the situation for students on the private housing market, which has been difficult for decades anyway, is now coming to a head, and how urgently the state must now take countermeasures, above all via a rapid, further BAföG increase.

Students are threatened by an existential social emergency. Financially and psychologically, they are coming out of the Corona pandemic on their last legs - and in view of exploding prices, they often don't know how they are supposed to pay their rent, electricity, gas and food in the winter.

The state urgently needs to take countermeasures, especially with BAföG. We need a further increase in the BAföG requirement rates quickly. The 5.75% increase that will take effect in the 2022/2023 winter semester has already been absorbed by inflation, and it is not right that BAföG-funded students will soon no longer be able to afford a room in a shared apartment on the open housing market with their state student funding.

State countermeasures are also urgently needed on a state level: the student unions now need more financial support from the states very quickly so that they do not have to pass on the enormous price increases for energy and food to the students in the form of greatly increased rents in the student dormitories and more expensive food in the dining halls. Having to do that goes against the 'DNA' of student unions, whose mission as nonprofit organizations is to provide students with affordable housing and inexpensive food as best they can."

„Hochschulstädtescoring 2022“ online

Press release online