DSW: Lack of living space

Lack of living space: 33,000 students on waiting lists for halls of residence

• Matthias Anbuhl, Chairman of the Executive Board of Deutsches Studierendenwerk (DSW): “”Social selection through rent undermines educational equity"
• DSW demands: Implement BAföG commitments, increase need-based rates and flat-rate housing allowance, vigorously implement federal-state program “Junges Wohnen”
• We need a decade of building and renovating halls of residence
• Eleven of the 57 student unions alone have around 33,000 students waiting for a place in a hall of residence 
  
  

Berlin, 30 September 2025. At the beginning of the 2024/2025 winter semester, around 33,000 students are waiting for a place in a hall of residence at eleven of the 57 student unions alone. This was announced by Deutsches Studierendenwerk (DSW), the association of student services organizations.

For the DSW, this is further proof of the need to swiftly tackle the BAföG reforms promised in the coalition agreement and to vigorously implement the federal-state program “Junges Wohnen”.

According to the association of student unions, which operate around 1,700 student residences with almost 196,000 places nationwide, 33,005 students were on the waiting list for a place in a hall of residence at the student unions in Berlin, Darmstadt, Erlangen-Nuremberg, Frankfurt am Main, Göttingen, Hamburg, Hanover, Heidelberg, Cologne, Mainz and Munich on 30 September 2025 - more than 8,800 of them at the Munich Upper Bavaria Student Union alone, for Munich, the most expensive university city in Germany.

Matthias Anbuhl, Chairman of the DSW Board, comments:
"The high rents threaten to financially overwhelm many students and create long waiting lists at the student unions. There is a threat of a new form of social selection: Whether a course of study can be taken up often depends not on the grade point average, but on the rent price at the university location. This social selection through the rent factor de facto undermines educational equality in Germany. This is an educational and socio-political scandal.

The student unions are fighting this development with their approximately 196,000 places in halls of residence. A place in their halls of residence costs an average of just 305 euros nationwide. However, based on the total demand for student accommodation, they can only accommodate around 10 percent of students in their facilities, which leads to these waiting lists and enormous social pressure for students in university cities.

In the coalition agreement, the Federal Government has agreed to implement an increase in the BAföG flat-rate housing allowance to €440 in 2026/27 as part of a major BAföG amendment, which will also include an increase in the basic requirement to the level of basic income support and the dynamization of allowances. Larger university locations such as Cologne, Munich, Frankfurt am Main or Hamburg are already barely affordable today. However, rents are likely to rise further by 2026. Then the 440 euros will no longer be enough. The federal government needs to step up its game.

A real sign of hope for the student housing market is the federal-state program ‘Junges Wohnen’. Doubling the funding from 2027 is the right thing to do, but it would be better if it came as early as 2026. If the federal states implement it vigorously, this program can become a game changer in the medium term - because it enables the student unions to create or renovate the urgently needed affordable housing for students. We need a decade of building and renovation."

You can find this press release online