The debate about a 365-euro ticket for students is already a few years old. When the Munich city council finally decided in April of this year, many financially struggling students felt hope. But then the state government rebuffed the ticket in July. The Free State should have taken on two-thirds of the costs. Participation was considered safe.
The anger among the prospective academics is all the greater that the shareholders of the Munich Transport and Tariff Association (MVV) have now decided to increase the price for the so-called “Isarcard Semester” from 209.30 to 224.70 euros. If you add the solidarity contribution that all students have to pay, the total price exceeds the 300 euro mark, more precisely: With the decision to increase the solidarity contribution to 77.30 euros, the semester ticket from the summer semester 2023 will cost 302 euros.
Far too much, according to the students and the Studentenwerk. “This is a catastrophe for the students in the current situation,” says Maximilian Frank, coordinator of the student representatives’ mobility working group. Because students who regularly take public transport to the university during the day will hardly do without the Isarcard. The obligatory solidarity contribution only allows trips with the MVV between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. during the week. On weekends, public holidays, Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, the student ID card with the MVV logo is exceptionally valid all day. This is of little use in everyday life.
The students therefore feel further disadvantaged compared to pupils and trainees, for whom there is already a year-round 365-euro ticket and two-thirds of which is financed by the Free State, the rest being borne by the municipalities. The state government now wants to “evaluate” this ticket, i.e. to assess whether it is worth it at all. That shouldn’t happen until the end of next year, so the 365-euro ticket for students could not come until 2025, if at all. “But the problems are there now,” says Maximilian Frank, “and not in a few years.” Hardly anyone from his student environment can do without one or two part-time jobs in order to be able to live in expensive Munich at all. Only about eleven percent of all students receive BAföG.
The provisional manager of the student union, Ursula Wurzer-Fassnacht, is highly critical of the price increase for the Isarcard. “The students are currently having their backs against the wall,” she says. Sharply rising heating and energy costs, increased food prices and high rents in Munich used up the last reserves of many students. “The fact that instead of a reduction in public transport costs, students are now faced with the sharpest price increase since 2016 is a severe social setback and I find it completely incomprehensible.”