Universities
KMK expects an increase in new students by 2035
Students during a lecture. photo
© Swen Pförtner/dpa
The number of students in Germany and thus also the number of school leavers is increasing. According to a forecast, this will also have a significant impact on the number of new students in the medium term.
The number of new students in According to a forecast by the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (KMK), Germany will increase significantly in the next ten years.
By 2026, the number will fall from 478,000 this year to 451,100, but after that an increase to 526,000 in 2035 is expected, the KMK announced. “This is around 7,500 more than in the previous peak year of 2011,” it said.
According to the information, the expected decline by 2026 is mainly due to the fact that Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein are switching back to 13 years of schooling up to the Abitur, which means that fewer people eligible to study will initially leave school. It is said that this has a significant impact on the number of new students.
According to KMK forecasts, the proportion of those eligible to study with university entrance qualifications in the population of the same age will increase from 49.8 percent in 2021 to 52 percent in 2035. The basis for the calculations are the KMK’s projections of the number of students and graduates with university entrance qualifications and technical college entrance qualifications from September 2023. At that time, the KMK had forecast an increase in the number of students from eleven today to twelve million in 2035. Immigration and the development of birth rates were cited as reasons.