Waldorf News

How US students get a university degree for free in Germany

By Franz Strasser, BBC News, Germany

While the cost of college education in the US has reached record highs, Germany has abandoned tuition fees altogether for German and international students alike. An increasing number of Americans are taking advantage and saving tens of thousands of dollars to get their degrees.

‘Mind blowing’

Katherine Burlingame decided to get her Master’s degree at a university in the East German town of Cottbus.

A graduate of Pennsylvania State University, Katherine spent less than €500 ($570) a month in Cottbus, which included housing, transportation and healthcare. On top of that she received a monthly scholarship by the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Council) of €750 ($815) which more than covered her costs.

“When I found out that just like Germans I’m studying for free, it was sort of mind blowing,” Katherine says.

“I realised how easy the admission process was and how there was no tuition fee. This was a wow moment for me.”

In the 2014-2015 academic year, private US universities charged students on average more than $31,000 for tuition and fees, with many schools charging well over $50,000. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Sarah Lawrence University is most expensive at $65,480.

Public universities demanded in-state residents to pay more than $9,000 and out-of-state students paid almost $23,000, according to College Board.

In Germany, tuition fees of €500-1000 were briefly instituted last decade, but Lower Saxony became the last state to phase them out again in 2014.

Students pay a fee to the university each semester to support the student union and other activities. This so called ‘semester fee’ rarely exceeds €150 and in many cases includes public transportation tickets.

Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

When Katherine came to Germany in 2012 she spoke two words of German: ‘hallo’ and ‘danke’. She arrived in an East German town which had, since the 1950s, taught the majority of its residents Russian rather than English.

“At first I was just doing hand gestures and a lot of people had compassion because they saw that I was trying and that I cared.”

She did not need German, however, in her Master’s programme, which was filled with students from 50 different countries but taught entirely in English. In fact, German universities have drastically increased all-English classes to more than 1,150 programmes across many fields.