Higher education in Germany is mainly funded by the state and as such it is literally free of charge for domestic and international students alike. The German higher education system consists of around 400 institutions, divided into public “tuition free” institutions that host over 2.4 million students across Germany, and a smaller number of private institutions that enroll less than 5% of the total student body.
In the past decade, Germany has been politically struggling to ban tuition fees throughout the whole country; yet as a decentralized federal country it was difficult to bring all 16 of the federations to agree. In 2014, Germany’s 16 states abolished tuition fees for undergraduate students at all public German universities. This means that currently both domestic and international undergraduates at public universities in Germany can study for free, with just a small fee to cover administration and other costs per semester.
This good fortune may not last though. In December 2016 it was announced the south-west state of Baden-Württemberg will be reintroducing tuition fees for non-EU students, starting from autumn 2017, and it’s possible other states will follow suit in the coming years.
For now, the low fees certainly help to make studying in Germany an attractive option for prospective students, and the country has previously been ranked as the fourth most popular destination for international students in the world (after the US, UK and Aus...