BAföG reform decid­ed: What changes?

At the begin­ning of April 2022, the Ger­man gov­ern­ment launched a new reform. The aim is to make BAföG acces­si­ble to more peo­ple and thus also more attrac­tive, mod­ern and flex­i­ble. This should offer more young peo­ple and adults bet­ter edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties, regard­less of their back­ground and finan­cial sit­u­a­tion. The changes are to come into force as ear­ly as the win­ter semes­ter, but before that hap­pens the Bun­desrat (upper house of par­lia­ment) still has to give the final green light.

What changes does the new reform bring?

Access to fund­ing is to be opened up to more peo­ple. Far-reach­ing mea­sures are there­fore envis­aged, including:

  • The increase of the tax-free allowances by 20.75 per­cent, the increase of the need rates by 5.75 per­cent and the increase of the hous­ing sup­ple­ment for recip­i­ents who do not live with their par­ents to 360 euros.
  • At the same time, the age lim­it is raised to 45 years at the begin­ning of the train­ing peri­od to be sup­port­ed and standardized.
  • In addi­tion, the dig­i­tal appli­ca­tion for BAföG will be sim­pli­fied. It will be offered com­plete­ly dig­i­tal­ly after implementation.
  • In the future, one-year self-con­tained study abroad pro­grams will be fund­ed, even if they are com­plet­ed entire­ly in third coun­tries (out­side the EU).
  • In addi­tion, the pos­si­bil­i­ty of remis­sion of the resid­ual loan debt after 20 years is also grant­ed to repay­ment oblig­ors in old cases.

In order to be able to act more quick­ly in the event of seri­ous nation­wide cri­sis sit­u­a­tions, such as the Coro­na pan­dem­ic, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment will in future be able to extend the BAföG fund­ing peri­od appro­pri­ate­ly if necessary.

Excerpt from: https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/service/gesetzesvorhaben/bafoeg-reform-antrag-2022912

The inno­va­tions for stu­dents at a glance

AreaoldnewDif­fer­ence
Basic need427 €452 €+ 24 €
Rent sup­ple­ment (liv­ing alone)325 €360 €+ 35 €
Rent sup­ple­ment (liv­ing with parents)56 €59 €+ 3 €
Max­i­mum rate per month*752 €812 €+ 60 €
Child sup­ple­ment (per child)150 €160 €+ 10 €
Health insur­ance surcharge**84 €94 €+ 10 €
Long-term care insur­ance surcharge**25 €28 €+ 3 €
Allowance for parental income (mar­ried)2.000 €2.415 €+ 20 %
Allowance for own income (mini-job)450 €520 €+ 70 €
Age lim­it30 years45 years+ 15 years
Asset allowance up to 30 years8.200 €15.000 €+ 6.800 €
Wealth allowance from the age of 308.200 €45.000 €+ 36.800 €

*Total amount that can be received on a max­i­mum month­ly basis. With­out sup­ple­ment for health and long-term care insur­ance.
** For all those over 30 years of age (stu­dent health insur­ance is no longer pos­si­ble), the require­ment increas­es up to € 167 for KV and up to € 38 for PV.

Emer­gency mech­a­nism for BAföG

Cri­sis sit­u­a­tions are always a major chal­lenge, but espe­cial­ly for peo­ple who are depen­dent on fund­ing. For this rea­son, the fed­er­al cab­i­net approved an emer­gency mech­a­nism for BAföG in mid-May. This is intend­ed to pro­vide stu­dents and trainees with faster and more tar­get­ed sup­port in future crises. 

This means that as soon as there is a sig­nif­i­cant slump on the labor mar­ket and as a result there is no pos­si­bil­i­ty for trainees and stu­dents to pur­sue a sec­ondary activ­i­ty, then the emer­gency mech­a­nism should take effect. The best exam­ple of such a cri­sis sit­u­a­tion is the Coro­na pan­dem­ic, which result­ed in count­less sec­ondary jobs no longer being possible.

In addi­tion, there is emer­gency assis­tance fund­ing, which is avail­able to those who are not eli­gi­ble for BAföG for per­son­al rea­sons. Exam­ples of per­son­al rea­sons are:

  • Exceed­ing the max­i­mum fund­ing period
  • lat­er change of specialization
  • miss­ing evi­dence of performance
  • Per­sons beyond the age lim­it, in sec­ondary edu­ca­tion or in part-time employment

Sources:
https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/service/gesetzesvorhaben/bafoeg-reform-antrag-2022912
https://www.bafoeg-rechner.de/FAQ/bafoeg-2022.php