It starts in May: for 49 euros through the whole of Germany. Many hope that there will finally be less tariff jungle with the Deutschlandticket. Politicians have even thought about the fact that not everyone can afford a ticket for 49 euros a month. Many transport associations are introducing discounted tickets. In Hamburg, for example, schoolchildren and social welfare recipients should be able to drive for 19 euros a month, trainees for 29 euros a month.
Well – the tariff jungle will not be completely abolished, but at least it will be a little more uniform. While students and trainees will soon be traveling at reduced rates in many places, this “tariff revolution” will not change much for students at first. They must continue to stick with their existing semester tickets, which are becoming increasingly expensive. According to current information, anyone who wants to travel nationwide can probably “upgrade” their ticket and pay the difference between the previous semester ticket price and the current Germany ticket price of 49 euros. That’s what it said after the last meeting of the transport ministers.
For example, if you are currently studying in Oldenburg, you pay around 32 euros per month for the semester ticket. For a surcharge of around 17 euros per month, the semester ticket can then, according to previous plans, be upgraded to a nationwide valid ticket. How exactly this is supposed to work does not seem to be entirely clear, even a month before the start of the ticket. No wonder: After all, there was no mention of students in the debate for a long time. The criticism of this is great – and all too understandable.
Yes, the structures of the thousands of different semester tickets are complicated and very different in the different regions. In North Rhine-Westphalia or Lower Saxony, for example, there is already a state-wide semester ticket that all students automatically pay with the semester fee. Other universities, on the other hand, have not had a ticket at all or only have a voluntary option. This also means that some student representatives would prefer to keep their tickets, while others are in favor of a nationwide, uniform, discounted ticket.
However, almost everyone agrees on one thing: once again, students were considered far too late, and they will not really benefit from the new Deutschlandticket for the time being. Because while for many others mobility will be much easier and cheaper from May, students even pay more. It is not the first time that students are forgotten – and then at the last moment a solution is quickly sought in order to involve them as needed.
For many students, the anger and disappointment about the announced “quick and unbureaucratic” one-off payment of 200 euros – which was everything in the end, but not fast and unbureaucratic – is still deep. It took more than half a year before a payout plan was finally in place, while everyone else had had their special payments in their accounts for a long time. The bridging aid for students at the beginning of the corona pandemic was also highly bureaucratic and did not reach many students who needed support, while companies easily received billions of euros.
The fact that the Bafög increases of the past year have long since been eaten up by inflation and the entire Bafög system urgently needs a general overhaul does not make the situation any better. One thing is clear: anyone who only thinks about students as an afterthought shortly before the end of the debate has not understood how much their social situation has deteriorated in recent years. The romantic image of studying as a time in life, when you have little money at your disposal, but are all the richer in good conversations and new knowledge, has long been buried somewhere under existential fears and pressure to perform.
If even the noodles in the supermarket are getting more and more expensive, well, how can you still afford the famous noodles with ketchup. The meal that many students have to plan for in the last week of the month because there is no money left for anything else? Not to mention the vegetables, the ever-increasing semester fees or the skyrocketing rental costs in many cities, with which, according to the Federal Statistical Office, almost a quarter of all students are heavily overburdened. So it’s high time that students weren’t always considered after there was a protest, but from the outset.
