Overview
- The German Student Union reports 33,005 students still queued for dorm rooms across major cities as October classes start, with only about one in ten students able to get a place in public residences.
- North Rhine–Westphalia remains a hotspot: Cologne lists about 2,500 waiting, Bonn roughly 3,000, Münster 2,200, Bielefeld 975 with waits of about four semesters, and Aachen/Jülich report roughly 11,000 on their list.
- Brandenburg’s Studierendenwerk West received around 3,300 applications for 800 places, including 2,600 applicants in Potsdam competing for roughly 580 spots, while private options there run about €800–€865 a month.
- Affordability pressures are severe: students with their own households spend about 53% of income on rent, the average WG room now costs €505, and the €380 BAföG housing allowance falls short in most university locations.
- Stopgaps and policy steps include campus sleep halls with field beds and youth-hostel long stays, a federal plan to raise the BAföG housing rate to €440 in winter 2026/27, and expanded ‘Junges Wohnen’ funding that doubled federally supported dorm places from 4,176 in 2023 to 8,864 in 2024.