Icon: enlarge
"Abitur will be the measure of all things in the medium term": Freshmen in Heidelberg (before the corona crisis, archive picture)
Photo: Uwe Anspach / dpa
The corona pandemic could lead to more students at universities and technical colleges in the medium term.
The number of freshmen could rise from the current 500,000 per year to over 600,000 in 2030.
This emerges from an as yet unpublished analysis by the Research Institute for Educational and Social Economics (FiBS) in Berlin, which SPIEGEL has received.
The experts are initially expecting noticeably fewer foreign students due to the corona crisis.
In their scenario, however, the education economists assume that there will be a significant increase in interest in studying among young people in Germany.
The reason for this trend is that the pandemic has thwarted the plans of many young people.
more on the subject
OECD Education Report: Vocational Education Strong, General Schools Weak By Armin Himmelrath
"Be it that their dreams were broken and they could not travel abroad," write the researchers, or that "they did not get an internship or apprenticeship position. Or that the uncertainty allows them to take the safe path to study, in part also because their way to a foreign university is currently blocked. "
FiBS director Dieter Dohmen is certain after the analysis: "The Abitur will become the measure of all things in the medium term".
The often lamented "academization mania" is a myth and is "mainly propagated by people who either pursue their own interests or have not yet arrived in the 21st century".
Germany must adapt its education system to these developments and further expand the university sector.
Icon: The mirror
