DSW: High rental costs for students

Rent costs for students: "A new form of social selection"

• Deutsches Studierendenwerk (DSW) warns: Choice of place of study threatens to become wallet-dependent due to rents
• New study on student housing costs by Moses Mendelssohn Institute in cooperation with the portal WG-gesucht.de
• Study of rental costs in 90 university cities with more than 5,000 students
• Average rent for a shared room 479 euros per month - BAföG flat-rate housing allowance: 360 euros per month
• DSW Chairman Matthias Anbuhl: "It is a scandal that the Federal Ministry of Education does not want to increase the flat-rate housing allowance in the 29th BAföG amendment"
  
  

Berlin, 20 March 2024: Matthias Anbuhl, Chairman of the Executive Board of Deutsches Studierendenwerk, comments on the new study by the Moses Mendelssohn Institute (MMI) on average rental costs for students:

"The lack of affordable housing is the central social issue in university cities. The new MMI study shows: With the BAföG flat-rate housing allowance of 360 euros per month, it is virtually impossible to afford an average shared room in any German university city - let alone in high-priced cities such as Munich, Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg or Frankfurt am Main.

We are now experiencing a new form of social selection: The question of which university I can study at depends more and more on whether I can even afford the rent in the city. The freedom of the younger generation is being severely restricted. This is a misery in terms of education policy.

And it is a scandal in terms of social and educational policy that the Ministry of Education is also planning a zero increase in the BAföG housing allowance for the upcoming revision of the law. Parliament must courageously correct the inactive Ministry. The funds are available in the budget. However, the minister only wants to invest 62 of the 150 million euros planned for the BAföG reform in the education budget. The remaining funds are apparently to be expired.

We also urgently need additional affordable housing for students and trainees. The 'Young Housing' federal-state program launched last year provides an important impetus here. Many states - such as Bavaria, Saxony, Thuringia, North Rhine-Westphalia, Berlin and Hamburg - are using this program to invest heavily in young housing. Now the other federal states need to follow suit.

The most affordable form of housing outside of the parental home remains student accommodation, with an average warm rent of 280 euros per month. However, the heating transition poses major challenges for the student unions. Almost 40 percent of their approximately 200,000 student residences need to have their heating replaced. Rents will only remain affordable if this is accompanied by very good state funding. And the cities urgently need to approach the student unions as part of their municipal heating planning."

Together with the portal WG-gesucht.de, Moses Mendelssohn Institute (MMI) has examined the average rental costs for students for a room in a shared flat on the open market in all 90 university cities with more than 5,000 students. They amount to an average of 479 euros per month. The MMI writes: "The BAföG flat-rate housing allowance is still 360 euros, but in 73 cities this is not even enough for an average room. In 45 cities, the lower price segment is already above this level."

The study online

This press release online