Studying in Munich: Working class children in the corona pandemic – Munich

At home, in a small town in the Bavarian Forest between Passau and Deggendorf, there was little understanding when Jenny Hansjürgen reported that she wanted to go to Munich to study. “Work has a great value. The idea of ​​not looking for a good job after training and forgoing salary seemed completely crazy,” she says. Jenny Hansjürgen has six siblings. The mother is an assistant cook, there is no father in her life. Hansjürgen has completed an apprenticeship as a geriatric nurse and completed his Abitur on the second educational path. She has been studying human medicine at the Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) since the winter semester – as the first in the family.

So the 25-year-old belongs according to the Higher Education Report to the 27 percent of children from a non-academic household who later begin university studies. When it comes to the children of academics, 79 percent go to university. Non-academic children, working-class children or students of the first generation: these terms include all those whose parents have not studied. They have a harder time at the university than children from academic families. The pandemic seems to have exacerbated their situation – and the workers’ children were just catching up.

The higher education report, which is published by the Stifterverband der Deutschen Wirtschaft and the management consultancy McKinsey, has recently recorded a falling dropout rate for working-class children. 76 percent of them complete a bachelor’s degree, and 82 percent of the academic children. “The proportion of all non-academic children who do a doctorate has doubled to two percent. It is six percent for academic children,” it says.

Not even ten percent of the students are dependent on state student loans

The Munich universities do not collect any data on the educational level of their parents or the economic situation in their students’ homes. However, an evaluation by the Munich student union from 2020 shows that of the more than 130,000 students at the 15 Munich universities, only 9,676 students received state funding from the Federal Training Assistance Act (Bafög). A similar number – 9106 – have received an application for bridging aid. A financial grant introduced by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) during the corona pandemic. More than 90 percent of Munich students and their parents have so much wealth or income that they do not qualify for government funding.

This does not apply to medical student Jenny Hansjürgen. She receives Bafög and lives on a scholarship. To make do with it, she moved to the north-eastern outskirts of Munich. A more digital everyday study life suits her because she does not have to drive to the university every day and can therefore study at her own pace. “I was looking for a way to save on housing costs. And now I live here rent-free with an elderly woman,” she says. “Housing for help” is the name of the project that has been bringing students and older people together with space in the apartment for 25 years.

However, those who have to work alongside their studies have been hit by the pandemic. In the 2020 summer semester, the German Center for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW) surveyed students across Germany about their situation. The result: “Findings to date show that the financial situation of some students has actually deteriorated over the long term due to cuts in their employment and fewer support options for their parents (due to short-time work or other income losses caused by the pandemic),” says the January analysis. In a previous survey, two-thirds of working-class children said they had to work alongside their studies.

An anti-classism department was set up at the LMU

The fact that Jenny Hansjürgen does not belong to this group also has something to do with the fact that she turned to the “Workers’ Child” association during her high school graduation. The nationwide initiative is committed to getting more working-class children to study. Above all, it provides information on funding opportunities for children from non-academic households and motivates them to throw reservations overboard. In addition, prospective students are networked with mentors at the local level who can advise them on individual issues.

One of the Munich mentors is Franz Leipfinger. “My father is an agricultural machinery mechanic and my mother is a pediatric nurse,” he says. They weren’t against his studies, “but they don’t understand what I’m doing.” Leipfinger is a lawyer and has been volunteering with Arbeiterkind for four years. There he mediates between parents and children, gives tips for discussions with professors or helps with formalities. “We’ve noticed that for many, the inhibition threshold to get help is very high,” he says.

Felix Gaillinger also wanted to build a ramp to overcome this when he founded the anti-classism department at the LMU a year and a half ago. It is an interest group for students who are affected by unequal participation opportunities because of their class: “Workers and workers’ children, working poor, students with Hartz IV experience and others,” says the self-description. When the department was founded, Gaillinger had almost completed his studies. He drove blood supplies through Munich to finance himself.

Today, the cultural scientist works at the university himself – “in the academic mid-level faculty,” as he says. “My mother was a single parent with no college education. She supported my wish but had no means.” The department should be a contact point to exchange experiences and show solidarity. In the long term, the structures in university operations should be improved. “I saw the experiences I had as an individual fate,” he says. However, one cannot solve social problems alone.

The corona pandemic has thrown back those who are committed. At the beginning of the winter semester there was a series of information events under the title “Critical Introductory Weeks”, now a lot is taking place online. “We do reading circles and helped organize demos. But we also get involved when the prices in the canteen are raised,” says Markus Striese, spokesman for the department. He studies philosophy and sociology, and he too was criticized for wanting to study. “I should have a good life, that’s what they said after my training,” he says.

Striese graduated from secondary school, learned foreign trade and later earned a master’s degree. He often struggled to finish his studies, “but now I got a scholarship,” he says. That’s why he and the anti-classism department are campaigning for the student loan reform and the return of the full subsidy – so that those who receive funding will no longer have to pay back money to the state treasury in the future.

In Munich, only comparatively few students apply for this state support. The regional evaluation of the 21st social survey showed that 76 percent of Munich students did not apply at all. The DZHW carried out the evaluation in 2016; more recent data have not yet been published. The paper states that students from Munich interrupt their studies significantly less often due to financial problems than in the rest of the country. Only six percent state that they have to go to work in the meantime, compared to 16 percent across Germany.

According to the social survey, there are a total of 32 percent fewer working-class children enrolled in Munich compared to the rest of Bavaria (37 percent). So Jenny Hansjürgen, Felix Gaillinger and Markus Striese are part of a minority. They want to help ensure that there are fewer barriers for people of similar origin in the future.