Bafög recipients will receive more money in the winter semester. The Bundestag decided on Thursday with the votes of the traffic light coalition and the left an almost six percent increase in the Bafög rates and a significant increase in allowances and protective assets, which should increase the circle of those entitled to Bafög. The rates will also be increased for students and trainees. Union and AfD voted against the reform.
In the past ten years, the number of recipients has steadily decreased. “The funding so far has excluded too many. We are reversing this trend,” said Federal Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP). The traffic light coalition had added something because of the inflation, originally a Bafög increase of five percent was planned. Student representatives and the German Student Union criticize the increase as too low.
The left-wing politician Nicole Gohlke spoke in the Bundestag of “a bit of cosmetics” and accused the traffic light of being unworldly. “Inflation eats up the Bafög increase completely, there is nothing left.” The CSU education politician Katrin Staffler called the law a “reform” that falls short.
The coalition defended the plan. In the course of the reform of the BaföG, two billion euros will be made available in the coming years. The law that has now been passed is only the first step.
According to the plans of the traffic light, the Bafög should become “more independent of parents” in the long term, in that the basic child security plan planned by the SPD, Greens and FDP will be paid directly to students – as the “basic basis of study financing”. The AfD criticized a “watering can principle”. “Studying is an opportunity, but not a state-guaranteed human right for everyone,” said Götz Frömming, spokesman for education policy.
