A total of 67,500 young people have decided to study in Bavaria and are starting their studies in these weeks. The number of new students in the Free State has increased by around 2,000 compared to the previous year, Science Minister Markus Blume (CSU) announced on Monday at the start of lectures at the universities. The total number of students at all universities remained roughly the same. It stands at 404,000, “and contrary to the generally expected trend of falling student numbers,” says Blume, “a sustained record level.”
Bavaria’s universities lie behind a long, systematic growth. For comparison: ten years ago a good 355,000 people were enrolled. In the current year, the Free State is investing a total of around seven billion euros in the higher education sector, added Blume. That is more than ever before and an increase of around 34 percent compared to 2018.
Bavaria has ten universities, 17 colleges of applied sciences and six art colleges, with a total of 86 university locations. This is also a record number and the result of a targeted expansion of the science system into rural areas. For the first time, studying is now possible in Dingolfing: An international study program for sustainable industrial processes at Landshut University of Applied Sciences is starting there in the winter semester. The ministry also emphasizes the “focus on internationalization”: around a third of first-year students in the Free State come from abroad. In computer science, for example, one in four of the almost 40,000 students enrolled is an international student.
Further innovations for this winter semester: At the Technical University of Nuremberg, Germany’s youngest university, which was only founded in 2021, the on-site course offering is starting: an interdisciplinary master’s degree program on artificial intelligence and robotics. The cabinet had already decided in the summer to accelerate the construction of the new university. From now on, for the first time there will be a legally anchored representation of student interests at the state level. Established in the summer, the State Student Council is an “important voice on all study policy issues,” according to the ministry. However, this is not a “constitutional” student body like in other federal states, as the GEW education union recently criticized. In Bavaria, the committee is “bound to the goodwill of the state government”. For the winter semester, Bavaria is also introducing the 29-euro ticket on local transport for students.