Legally, parents are obliged to support a child until it has completed a course of study which qualifies it to work in a particular profession.
This may also be a degree subsequent to educational training. If the income of the parents is not sufficient, subsidies according to the Federal Training Promotion Act (BAföG) are usually possible. The Higher Regional Courts in the federal area base the support they provide on a monthly student maintenance requirement of €860 plus contributions to health and care insurance plus the enrollment fee. Allocation to a maintenance level is based on the Dusseldorf Table. However, the actual level of entitlement to maintenance is based on the parents’ income. Parents may demand proof that their child is studying in accordance with the study regulations.
We provide you with information on the legal requirement to provide child maintenance and will discuss together with you what options you have when your parents cannot or even will not pay for your maintenance. It can occur that students with difficult relations with their parents cannot make an agreement with their parents on maintenance, or that students can only do so with extreme difficulty. Before you decide to go to court, please seek consultation at the social counselling centre or the psychotherapeutic counselling. In addition, the Social Counselling Centre also offers mediation/conflict resolution counselling.
An important pillar for financing your studies is BAföG. But are you entitled to it?
We will counsell on the eligibility requirements, questions and problems when extending BAföG and on possible alternatives.
A scholarship is not only a very good way of funding your studies, but also an excellent addition to your CV.
However, it is not easy to get a scholarship. To get a scholarship, you will need to master how to research foundations, how to make a good application and possibly also how to deal with a time-intensive selection process. The efforts required to apply to a foundation for a scholarship are roughly comparable to those required to apply for a job with qualification requirements, but these efforts are worthwhile. Never send mass letters. Inform the foundations where you have submitted further applications. Further information can also be found in our flyer, Financing Your Studies via Foundations.
We would like to encourage you to try this way of financing your studies and we provide you with information on researching and applying. We also advise you in ongoing scholarship issues, such as in offsetting your scholarship funds against housing benefit or unemployment benefits.
Two thirds of all students finance themselves in part or entirely by working – whether with a minijob or midijob, doing self-employed work, doing one-off jobs or as a student assistant.
If you earn €450 or less, you will not have to pay tax or social insurance contributions. As a student, you can work up to 20 weeks per week during the teaching months, largely without having to pay insurance contributions. In the semester breaks, however, you can work a lot more. It is important that your time and capacity to work are mainly dedicated to your studies. The amount you earn impacts your BAföG, however, and can also impact the amount of health insurance you pay.
We explain to you the requirements for working while you study and assist you in working out what the impact could be on your social insurance, child benefit, scholarships or BAföG. If you are pregnant, we advise you on the social protection regulations in employment law, about maternity allowance and parental leave, and about all topics related to working and studying.
You can find a job portal and free job related workshops on www.stw.berlin/en/job-agency.html
In addition to BAföG, there are also other state social benefits the students can apply for.
For example, if you take a semester-long break due to pregnancy, it is possible to receive unemployment benefits during this period. Likewise, state housing benefit is a good way for many students to pay a part of their rent.
We provide you with an overview of your possible social entitlements, explain the prerequisites for applying for housing benefit, the exemption from paying financial contributions to the German broadcast media and provide information on getting child benefits and parental benefits. We also offer detailed advice for pregnant students and students with children. Whether full-time or part-time studies or a pause from your studies as part of a one-semester long break, we will help you to examine which could be the best option for you personally during pregnancy and while raising your child. You can make all applications to Help for the Family Foundation (Stiftung Hilfe für die Familie) via us.
There are now a large number of different loan options which are specially aimed at students and are therefore cheaper than other loans.
Before deciding on a loan, you should first check all other financing options, together with the Social Counselling Centre. You should only get a loan if you have no other option. We can give you an overview on student loans such as BAföG bank loan, KfW's student loan or loans from Studentische Darlehenskasse.
In order to get a feel for the costs incurred, we recommend using a repayment calculator to create a model repayment plan. To calculate the total debt, interest, and monthly repayment rates, there is a repayment calculator here.
KfW-Förderbank also offers a repayment calculator for KfW student loans and a repayment calculator for educational credit loans.
Studentische Darlehnskasse e.V. also provides you with a repayment calculator. With this, you can found out your payment and repayment schedules, based on the loan conditions.
We help you to deal with important questions that arise before you take out a loan, let you know about debt traps and help you to find alternatives to taking out a loan. We provide information about the conditions of publicly funded student loans, and how they are allocated and repaid.