Many groups in our society will reach their financial limits in 2022. Students have to pay particular attention to their money. Because the costs for student accommodation in Germany have recently risen significantly again.
Inflation is hitting students particularly hard, with slow-growing incomes exposed to rising energy and living costs. Added to this are the rents at university locations in Germany, which are rising again significantly. This is the result of the student housing report 2022, a representative study on the housing situation of students in Germany, by the financial consultancy MLP.
Now save articles for later in “Pocket”.
A total of 38 locations in Germany were examined. Rents rose by 5.9 percent across all of them, and rooms in shared apartments even went up by 9.4 percent. According to the authors of the study, it can be observed that the increases are concentrated in the first half of 2022. This suggests that many landlords include the increased consumer prices in the rent demands.
The housing situation for students is also getting worse in big cities. The increased rents can be enforced due to the continuing shortage of supply in Berlin or Munich, for example, and due to the shift in demand to inexpensive apartments.
According to the report, rents rose the most in Berlin – by 18.5 percent. There are also double-digit growth rates in Greifswald, Rostock, Leipzig, Heidelberg, Kiel and Bremen. By contrast, rents rose by three percent in Freiburg, Darmstadt and Frankfurt.
The most expensive place for students is and remains Munich. The student model apartment in the Isar metropolis costs 787 euros. Close behind follow Stuttgart with 786 euros and Berlin with 718 euros.
If you want to save on rent and find the right course of study, you can find what you are looking for in Dresden, Leipzig, Magdeburg and Chemnitz with monthly rents of less than 400 euros. The costs for a sample room in a shared flat range from 186 euros in Chemnitz to 545 euros in Munich.
The report also shows that, on the one hand, the number of housing options in relation to the number of students is increasing in many cities, and on the other hand, the number of shared flats is falling significantly in many places. The authors suspect that larger apartments are increasingly being rented out to other groups. In any case, it can be assumed that due to higher ancillary housing costs and real wage losses, the competition for small apartments will increase.
Overall, the authors continue, it is evident that due to a lack of financial reserves, students are more heavily burdened by the current price increases. This is because they consume the majority of their income and are not or only marginally able to reduce their savings rates.
In addition, students would benefit only slightly from the relief measures such as the introduction of the 9-euro ticket in June 2022 or the fuel discount. Raising the BAföG rate is a step in the right direction. But it remains behind the expected inflation. In addition, less than 20 percent of students receive BAföG. This makes it all the more difficult to compensate for the sharp rise in rental prices.
