Berlin (d.de) – 367,578 international students were enrolled at German universities in the 2022/2023 winter semester, five percent more than the year before. With this new record, Germany has overtaken Australia in the list of most popular study destinations and now ranks third worldwide. It occupies first place among the non-English-speaking countries. “That is very good news for Germany as a country of academia and science, especially in view of the skilled workers shortage,” is German Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger’s response to the figures. The data had been published by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW).
With around 42,600 first-semester students in Germany, India is now the number one country of origin for the first time, ahead of China. The number of Ukrainian students has risen sharply and now totals 9,100. Germany remains attractive even after graduation: 45 percent of international students still live here ten years after beginning their studies – the highest proportion, along with Canada, in an OECD comparison.
“German universities are evidently extremely attractive to international students and doctoral candidates, which serves as an enormous lever for countering the dramatic shortage of skilled professionals among graduates,” said DAAD President Professor Dr Joybrato Mukherjee. This also applies to research institutions: “It is no coincidence that 29 percent, i.e. nearly a third, of the scientific personnel at the institutes run by the leading research associations such as the Max Planck Society and the Leibniz Association now come from abroad. The corresponding figure at universities is 14 percent,” said Professor Monika Jungbauer-Gans from the DZHW.
Discussion about this post