Germany: 45% of Graduates Started Their Master’s Degree Studies in 2019

According to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), the total number of bachelor graduates in 2019 reached 267,800, and it remains unchanged from the previous year, AtoZSerwisPlus.com reports.

So far this year, German higher education institutions are marking a comeback in education, as the number of occasional students has also increased.

As an article published by atozserwisplus.com reveals, occasional students, which include those that attend one course or module in a designated country, have surged by four per cent in Germany, reaching a total of 27,400 students in the winter semestre of 2021/2022.

The four per cent surge, which is equivalent to 1,096 students, remains below the pre-pandemic levels when a total of 37,200 students were attending their courses at German higher education institutions.

Moreover, the number of newly enrolled students in Germany has also dropped in the summer semester of 2021 and winter semestre 2021/2022, showing four per cent fewer students.

More specifically, Destatis reveals that 18,600 fewer students enrolled this year compared to 2020 and a further seven per cent compared to 2019 (508,700) when no COVID-19 hassles weren’t yet imposed.

As the data shows, the majority of students who started their studies this year were enrolled in local economic and social sciences, representing 38.4 per cent of all new enrollments. Engineering follows with a total of 124,030 new students or 26.3 per cent of the total, while humanities, mathematics and natural sciences represented 11 per cent of the students, respectively.

In addition, human medicine and health sciences, as well as other subjects, made up seven per cent of the total, respectively.

However, the number of students qualified to enter higher education has surged by 3.5 per cent or 13,200 students in 2021, with a total of 395,000 pupils in Germany attaining the qualification to enter a university or university of applied sciences.

The main factor linked to that increase is the solid growth in Niedersachsen stimulated by the return to the nine-year course of education at grammar schools. The discontinuation of the eight-year course of education had led to markedly fewer qualifications to enter higher education in 2020, while this effect has now been compensated.

Nonetheless, looking at the bigger picture, Germany has a lot more to do in the field of education, as a new study by the European Statistics Office, Eurostat, has revealed that the country is behind the average of EU’s young adult population with tertiary education degree by 5.3 per cent, alongside Croatia.

At present, the share of the young adult population in the EU, including those from 25 to 34 years old, that hold a higher education degree obtained in 2021, stands at 41 per cent. This rate is further expected to increase to 45 per cent by 2030, as the EU aims.