DSW: "Wanting to save on BAföG is fundamentally wrong"

• Prof Dr Beate A. Schücking, President of Deutsches Studierendenwerk (DSW), is a guest at the German Rectors' Conference (HRK) today
• Schücking presents the 22nd Social Survey at the HRK General Assembly
• Schücking: "Instead of cutting the 2024 budget for BAföG as planned, a rapid increase and the BAföG structural reform must be anchored in the 2024 federal budget"

Berlin, 14 November 2023. Prof. Dr Beate A. Schücking, President of Deutsches Studierendenwerk (DSW), today sharply criticised the planned cuts to the 2024 budget for BAföG in front of the heads of German universities and called on the Federal Government and Bundestag to instead anchor a rapid, substantial increase in BAföG benefit rates and the BAföG structural reform promised in the coalition agreement in the 2024 federal budget.

At the invitation of the German Rectors' Conference (HRK), Schücking will present the results of the 22nd Social Survey on the economic and social situation of students to university leaders at their general meeting in Berlin today, Tuesday 14 November 2023. The survey was conducted in summer 2021 as part of the "Student Survey in Germany"; more than 180,000 students from 250 universities took part.
 
Schücking focuses on student financing. According to the 22nd Social Survey, 37% of students have less than 800 euros per month - that is another 60 euros less than the Düsseldorf table at the time of the survey in summer 2021 for parental support for students living away from home. At 37%, this group is even larger than the 11% of students who receive BAföG.
 
For Schücking, these results on student financing are worrying - and show the immense pressure for action in state student financing; she comments:
 
"BAföG no longer seems to be adequately reaching its very own target group, those who need it most. And we are dealing with a toxic mix when it comes to state student financing as a whole. The interest rate on the KfW student loan continues to rise unabated, and BAföG is reaching fewer and fewer students.

The importance of BAföG as the key instrument for more equal opportunities and as the centrepiece of state student funding is in danger of being lost if the structural reform announced by the coalition is not implemented quickly and resolutely.
 
It is high time to strengthen BAföG again as the centrepiece of student funding. BAföG must be enough to live on and it must finally reach more students again. That is why we finally need the promised BAföG structural reform. Wanting to save on BAföG is fundamentally wrong.
 
I appeal to the Federal Government to tackle the structural reform of BAföG now and not to implement the cuts in BAföG funding planned for 2024.
 
And I appeal to the German Bundestag to reverse BAföG cuts in the 2024 federal budget to enable a short-term increase in funding rates."
 
The 22nd Social Survey online
 
This press release online