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Relief package: How the nine-euro ticket could reach students

2022-05-16T14:08:46.762Z


From June you should be able to travel for nine euros a month in local and regional transport. Only: Many students have long since paid for public transport with their semester contribution. How do you benefit from the discounted ticket?


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Many unanswered questions, little time: It is still unclear what exactly the nine-euro ticket means for students (symbol image)

Photo: Linxi Luo/EyeEm/EyeEm/Getty Images

The idea of ​​the "9 for 90" ticket is simple: from June 1st to August 31st, 2022, i.e. for a total of 90 days, there should be a discounted public transport ticket to relieve citizens of the high energy prices , while protecting the climate and making people want to use public transport more.

Cost: nine euros per month.

The ticket should be valid throughout Germany on buses and trains in local and regional transport – so you could use it to travel from Passau to Sylt, for example.

The so-called nine-euro ticket should also benefit people who already pay for public transport every month anyway, subscription customers at transport companies, for example.

Or students.

The discount could be of particular use to you - after all, higher prices mainly affect those who have little money at their disposal.

However, many students paid for public transport with their semester contribution before the start of the summer semester.

So how can they benefit from the nine-euro ticket?

This question has not yet been clarified in mid-May.

The German Student Union (DSW) is still waiting for specific proposals from the federal and state governments, DSW Secretary General Matthias Anbuhl told SPIEGEL.

Most of it is still open, there is not much time left

So far, the website of the Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and Transport has only said that the transport companies are working on reimbursement for semester tickets for the period from June to August.

But that's where it gets complicated.

Because how much would have to be reimbursed to the students differs from state to state and from city to city.

Anyone studying at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich, for example, pays 281.30 euros per semester to be able to use Munich's local transport without restrictions, i.e. just under 47 euros per month.

For the three months that the nine-euro ticket is to be valid, students are entitled to a refund of almost 114 euros.

In North Rhine-Westphalia, where the ticket is valid throughout the state and costs around 215 euros at the Ruhr University Bochum, for example, it would be just under 80 euros.

In Berlin, there are considerations of even turning the nine-euro ticket for subscribers into a zero-euro ticket - it is not yet known whether this would also apply to students.

Money back in summer or lower premiums in winter?

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It is also unclear when and how students should get the money back.

Should they still get a refund in the summer?

Or should the semester fee be lower in winter to compensate?

The answer to this question could also vary depending on the federal state and university.

In some regions, the student unions are responsible for the semester ticket, in others the General Student Committee (Asta) or the student body, says DSW Secretary General Anbuhl.

LMU recently recommended students in an e-mail, which SPIEGEL has received, not to transfer the contribution for the coming winter semester.

The nine-euro ticket could possibly be refunded.

Last year, however, the deadline for paying the semester fee – which also means re-registration or enrollment – ​​expired at the beginning of July.

So there isn't much time left.

Any solution needs advance notice

Making the semester fee cheaper in the coming semester is the better solution, says DSW Secretary General Anbuhl.

"Reimbursing those who have already paid for their semester ticket is an immense bureaucratic effort." But even this solution would require a certain amount of advance notice, says Anbuhl.

And it leaves one more question unanswered: If the students were only credited with the nine-euro ticket in the winter semester, could they still use local public transport throughout Germany from June to August with their regular semester ticket?

That has not yet been made clear, says Anbuhl.

At the moment, that is his impression, neither the federal states nor the transport associations are certain about the concrete implementation of the discounted tickets for students.

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2022-05-16

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