Universities – There are still a few free study places at the start of the semester – Education

Hanover (dpa/lni) – At the start of the new semester, not all places in some courses at universities in the north have been filled. This applies especially to technical and scientific courses, as a random survey by the German Press Agency in Lower Saxony, Bremen and Hamburg showed.

The so-called replacement period lasts until November for individual courses, said a spokeswoman for the Lower Saxony State University Conference (LHK) – an association of 21 universities in the state. The winter semester 2024/25 started at the university on October 1st.

At the University of Hildesheim, for example, 487 of 2,192 study places were still unfilled at the beginning of September (as of September 10th). This includes subjects such as educational sciences, philosophy-arts-media, international information management and business informatics, says a spokeswoman for the university. However, the psychology major had many applicants.

The number of first-year students in Hamburg has not yet been determined for the upcoming winter semester. A lottery process is currently underway for courses such as chemistry, mathematics, physics and geosciences to allocate the last places. It is said that anyone who has applied within the regular application period and has not yet received admission could take part.

Number of students in Lower Saxony declining

Some universities also report another trend: According to them, the number of enrollments has continued to decline over the past few years. Almost 2,450 first-year students started at the University of Hildesheim in the winter semester (WS) 2019/2020, whereas a year ago there were only around 1,800. Almost 400 places remained unfilled. Significantly fewer first-semester students also enrolled at the University of Oldenburg in 2023/2024 than before Corona.

Large universities such as the Leibniz University of Hannover also recorded declining numbers of bachelor’s, state examination and master’s students: from 9,228 enrollments in the entire 2019 academic year to 7,182 in the summer semester 2023 and winter semester 2023/2023.

Based on a current query, the State University Conference could “cautiously conclude” that enrollment numbers in Lower Saxony will not fall behind those of last year. This would at least stop development. According to the Lower Saxony State Statistics Office, the number of first-semester students fell compared to the pre-Corona years, from 20,456 first-year students in the 2019/2020 winter semester to just 17,179 in the last winter semester.

Students are leaving

A possible reason for the resistance: Students from Lower Saxony are emigrating – for example to study in Berlin, Bremen or Hamburg. This problem was also discussed in the Lower Saxony state parliament last week. For example, around a third of the students at the University of Bremen in 2023 came from Lower Saxony, as an annual report from the Rectorate of the University of Bremen shows.

But even at the University of Bremen and Hamburg, the number of first-year bachelor’s students is not back to the pre-Corona level, as the random dpa survey showed. According to a university spokesman, the University of Hamburg had more than 200 unfilled places in the 2023 academic year.

© dpa-infocom, dpa:240930-930-247317/1