Alarm Raised in Germany After Over 35k Students Were Still Waiting in September for a Place in a Hall of Residence
Germany/October 08, 2022/Source: https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/
More than 35,000 students at eleven university towns in Germany – Berlin, Darmstadt, Erlangen-Nuremberg, Frankfurt am Main, Göttingen, Hamburg, Hanover, Heidelberg, Cologne, Mainz, and Munich – were still waiting for a response on their application for a place in a hall of residence in mid-September, the German Students Union (DSW) has alarmed.
According to the DSW, the situation is worrying and extremely tense for students who, at the beginning of the 2022/2023 winter semester, are still unable to find housing due to the unavailability of student halls and the increasing prices of student apartments.
“Affordable housing for students is in absolute short supply, once again at the beginning of a winter semester. This structural problem makes it difficult for first-semester students to start their studies, and it makes it difficult for all students who, after four Corona semesters, now want to study in person at their universities and live in their university towns,” the Secretary General of DSW Matthias Anbuhl said commenting the situation.
He also says that the lack of affordable housing for students is an evident structural downside of the German higher education system, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
At the same time, Secretary General Anbuhl draws attention to the fact that since 2007, the number of state-subsidized study places has increased by 52 per cent, whereas the number of state-subsidized dormitory places at the student unions has increased by only six per cent. He calls on the government to work immediately to prevent this gap from growing any further.
Germany is not the only country in the European Union facing difficulties in accommodating all its students as with the inflation and the increase in rent prices, other countries as Sweden, Norway, and Spain, are also facing similar challenges.
SchengenVisaInfo.com reported at the end of last September that Sweden was also experiencing a student housing shortage, which had been present in the country before the pandemic as well. Students in cities like Göteborg, Halmstad, Karlskrona, Kiruna, Lund, Malmö, Skövde, Uppsala, Visby and the capital city, Stockholm, now have to find accommodation as early as six months in advance of the start of their classes.
Whereas the French Embassy in Dublin, Ireland, has advised students to find accommodation well in advance of the beginning of their studies in order to make sure they are not left without housing.
The University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands has taken a different approach to the issue, telling international students last July that if they do not find housing by August 15, they should not move to the Dutch capital at all.
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