Rising cost of German student housing crisis causes concern

The Deutsches Studierendenwerk (DSW – German Student Welfare Association) has called on the government to urgently take action following new statistics on rising housing costs for students announced by the Moses Mendelssohn Institute.

A new analysis performed by the Moses Mendelssohn Institute (MMI) suggests that housing costs for students in Germany are continuing to rise. According to the MMI, students have to pay an average of €512 (US$592.59) a month for a room in a shared flat, representing an increase of 3.9 % compared to last year.

Based in Potsdam, the MMI conducts research in Jewish cultural heritage and various other areas, including real estate and the impacts of social change on different real estate markets.

According to the German Federal Statistics Office (Destasis), the country’s student population was at 2,876,900 last winter semester.

The figure for the 2024 and 2025 winter semester was roughly 2,860,000, out of whom roughly 490,000 students were eligible for needs-based student grants and loans in accordance with the Bundesausbildungsförderungsgesetz (BAFöG – the federal grants and loans scheme). The average grant level then was at €635, including a housing costs flat rate of €380.

“The high rent levels are threatening to overwhelm [this] generation,” warned Matthias Anbuhl, board chairman of the DSW, the umbrella association of the Studierendenwerke, which provides a range of support services, including student hostels and canteens, at universities throughout Germany.

Anbuhl pointed out that the BAFöG flat rate for housing costs is far too low and that rent levels in university towns are rapidly outpacing the government grants and loans.

“I urgently appeal to Research Minister Dorothee Bär and Minister of Finance Lars Klingbeil not to let the young generation down and not to break the Federal Government’s promise to reform BAFöG,” Anbuhl recently announced, reminding the Federal Government of the pledge made in the ruling Christian Democrat, Christian Social Union and Social Democrat coalition agreement to review BAFöG regulations.

As stated in the agreement, a higher housing cost flat rate had to take effect by the coming winter semester, Anbuhl argued.

“The increase suggested from €380 to €440 is an absolute minimum in this context,” he added, also insisting that the government initiate a comprehensive reform of the BAFöG system, a demand raised repeatedly by both the DSW and the Hochschulrektorenkonferenz (HRK – Rectors’ Conference), representing the heads of German universities.

The number of homeless people in Germany already passed the one million mark in 2024, with figures having soared by 11% in just one year. While the Federal Ministry for Housing, Urban Development and Building claims that it is pursuing the goal of having overcome homelessness by 2030, actual developments today do not appear to point in this direction.

Anbuhl insisted that long-term measures are needed to cope with the student housing crisis.

“It would be disastrous if young people were to get the impression that the democratic parties don’t lend them an ear when it comes to their needs,” he warned.

Recent elections have suggested that the far right Alternative für Deutschland is indeed gaining ground among young voters. Klingbeil’s Social Democratic Party, in contrast, has been steadily losing voters, and there have been calls in the SPD for him to resign from the party’s leadership.