Refugees blocked by legal and financial barriers to HE

Europe, and Germany in particular, has seen a great influx of asylum seekers over the past months. In 2015 alone, the number of men, women and children seeking asylum in Germany reached a historic high of more than one million, which has proven to be a major challenge for the country’s established processing channels.

However, with great challenges come great opportunities: the majority of asylum seekers are under the age of 25 and well suited to help offset the decline of Germany’s ageing population.

Many of the newcomers have attended or had planned to attend university before they had to flee their home country. This desire to learn has not gone unnoticed and many German universities and other higher education institutions are opening their doors to asylum seekers.

However, for many asylum seekers, taking up or continuing their studies remains a distant dream as legal and financial barriers pose a seemingly insurmountable challenge. For Germany, a failure to address these barriers today could result in a lack of successful integration tomorrow since around 50% of asylum seekers are expected to stay in the long term.

Legal barriers

Although the German debate surrounding asylum procedures and integration measures has been dominated by security concerns on the one hand and ethical considerations on the other, the situation of the newcomers has also been reflected in the light of Germany’s future workforce demands.

In this context, the rulings around the country’s lengthy asylum procedures have been criticised for condemning thousands of young and eager asylum seekers to idleness whereas early access to education and training would foster integration in all segments of the labour market.

Asylum seekers have to wait an average of 5.3 months – and in tens of thousands of cases well over a year – until they learn whether or not they have been granted protected status, which would make it much easier to move around freely and take up employment.

Technically, access to higher education is less restricted in Germany than elsewhere. Asylum seekers do not have to wait to enrol on one of the tuition-free study programmes at German universities. As of August, none of the country’s 16 states, or Länder, prevents its universities from admitting asylum seekers who have yet to receive protected status.

Nevertheless, only a handful of newcomers can be found in lecture halls across the country. This is in part due to the residency requirements imposed during the asylum process.

Throughout this months-long wait for a decision, asylum seekers are required to reside in the administrative district they were originally assigned to (unless they manage to find a job elsewhere). Since not all districts are home to a university or a university with the specialisation they seek to study, asylum seekers are unable to enrol until they have been granted permission to move to another administrative district. And although there is legal precedence for this, the red tape involved has discouraged most prospective students from trying to get round residency requirements.

Those few who are not deterred often end up unable to prove that they possess the needed qualifications to enrol on a study programme. Generally, German universities require international applicants to provide a foreign school-leaving certificate or a foreign academic credential in order to be admitted. At least one needs to be considered equivalent to their German counterpart.

So, even if an applicant has managed to bring his or her diplomas to Germany, the documents may not be considered sufficient by a university’s admissions office.

Financial barriers

In addition to legal obstacles, financial requirements pose a barrier for asylum seekers. Although studying at a German university is still free of charge – with the exception of a very modest bi-annual administrative fee of around €100 to €300 – newcomers are required to pay for learning materials and their own living expenses which on average amount to around €800 (US$877) per month.

However, asylum seekers do not have full access to the labour market during their first 15 months or until they are granted protected status, which often takes more than a year. As a result, the vast majority have to make do with non-cash benefits and a monthly government-sponsored allowance of up to €216.

And while there are government-backed stipends for students, known as BAföG, asylum seekers are not allowed to apply for this type of financial aid until their asylum case has been decided. Until then, asylum seekers can only apply for BAföG once they have resided in Germany for at least 15 months (recently lowered from the original four years).

Finally, this situation is further complicated by restrictive regulations for asylum seekers who want to open a bank account. This can make it very difficult to receive stipend money and pay for rent or university fees.

Emerging solutions

To help lower these and other access barriers, the federal government, state governments, universities and civil society initiatives have come up with some concrete measures. In August, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research pledged to reserve an additional 2,400 places at Germany’s pathway colleges or Studienkollegs, which prepare prospective international students for university studies in Germany.

In conjunction with this measure, some states like Lower Saxony and Saarland have agreed to drop formal admission requirements for applicants with sufficient German language skills who successfully complete a Studienkolleg programme.

Meanwhile, the state of Baden-Württemberg is offering 50 scholarships of up to €750 per month to Syrian students whose asylum case has been decided. In addition, dozens of universities such as the University of Hildesheim and the University of Bayreuth encourage asylum seekers to take German lessons or audit courses.

Others go one step further: the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich has started to admit asylum seekers as exchange students so that they can study for academic credit even without German language skills.

These efforts are underpinned by various grassroots initiatives such as Kiron, a tuition-free online university for asylum seekers which offers accredited degrees in partnership with brick and mortar universities such as the University of Rostock.

With the help of these and other initiatives and programmes, asylum seekers are increasingly able to play a more active role in their educational and professional development. However, since integration is not a one-way street, universities will need to be prepared to help their new students adjust to student life on and off campus.

Simon Morris-Lange is deputy head of the research unit, Expert Council of German Foundations on Integration and Migration, Berlin, Germany. E-mail: morris-lange@svr-migration.de. Florinda Brands is a migration policy expert, Berlin, Germany. E-mail: florinda.brands@gmail. com. The arguments and conclusions contained here do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Expert Council of German Foundations on Integration and Migration. This is an updated version of an article which was first published in the winter edition of International Higher Education.

The second part of this Special Report on higher education for refugees will be published in next week’s issue of University World News.