Germany has become the most popular country in the world for foreign students in the non-English-speaking world. A new study released by two academic services found that students were attracted by better prospects.
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Germany has overtaken France as the most popular non-English-speaking country for international students, according to a new study. Germany came in behind the US, Britain and Australia in the rankings in 2016 (the most recent year for which data was available).
Nearly 252,000 students came from abroad to study in Germany in 2016, 16,000 more than in the previous year, and 6,000 more than in France.
Some 83% of the students surveyed said that they had chosen Germany because it offered them good professional opportunities, while 74% said they had come for an internationally recognized qualification.
More than 80% added that Germany had been recommended to them by friends and acquaintances.
Julia Hillmann of the DAAD put her finger on one of the biggest draws for international students: the fact that most German states don't have tuition fees. "Of course it's undeniable that that's an important point in Germany," she told DW. "Of course in comparison to a lot of countries that are well-loved target countries but have very high fees, a decisive factor for many."
50 years of Germany's 'numerus clausus' and the geniuses who failed to make the grade
In 1968, German universities introduced a numerus clausus – you needed the best grades to study popular subjects like medicine and law. If it had been any earlier, though, these renowned scientists wouldn't have made it.
Image: Fotolia/contrastwerkstatt
School careers are seldom straightforward
The story of physics genius Albert Einstein proves that even "bad students" can be motivated – when the situation is right. He was bored at elementary school, suffered under his authoritarian teachers and was considered unwilling to learn. After a move to Switzerland he graduated from high school – with average grades but top marks in math and physics.
Image: picture-alliance / akg-images
Inventor of a new way of seeing
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen was kicked out of high school when his teacher suspected Röntgen of drawing a cartoon of him, but Röntgen got into university. He passed the admission test for physics and machine engineering. In 1911, Röntgen received the first Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of x-rays. The principles of Röntgen's discovery are still used in medicine and elsewhere today.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Quotas to handle crowded lecture halls
In February 1968, students in Münster protested against the conditions at their university. They complained about rotten furniture and bad hygiene. The worst hardships of the post-war years were over and the students thought they were due improvements. The most crowded subjects were medicine and pharmacy. Laboratories and auditoriums were overcrowded. And it was the baby boomer years.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Bildarchiv
1968: Lively debates - are quotas fair?
The students also wanted to overthrow a generation of professors, whom they saw as being tainted by the Nazis. It was an era of student rebellion. The university deans decide to introduce the numerus clausus on March 27, 1968. Here, about 2,000 students can be seen holding a "teach-in" in Cologne to discuss what the new rules will mean for studying in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Better conditions for studying - but not for all
Medicine students in Germany today are likely to sit in lecture halls like this. There's enough space for everyone, and teaching methods are advanced. But only those with the best high school grades are admitted to study medicine and other popular subjects like law, business, math and the natural sciences. You can still apply with low grades, but you'll have to wait, sometimes for years.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/W. Grubitzsch
A top researcher with bad grades
Louis Pasteur had to wait. He grew up in a family of tanners – not the most respected beginnings at the time. He was diligent and got a place in higher education in Paris, but quit after becoming homesick. When he realized he would leave high school with bad grades, he decided to repeat a year and do better. Pasteur went on to become an infectious diseases expert and pioneered early vaccines.
Image: picture-alliance/United Archives/WHA
He just doesn't want to listen!
Thomas Edison didn't have fun at school. His teacher thought he was an airhead. The truth was Edison was deaf. He spent a few months at school before his mother, a part-time teacher, took on his education. He never studied at university, started his career as a telegrapher and became one of the world's most famous inventors, who developed the phonograph, motion picture camera and much, much more.
Image: picture-alliance/United Archives/TopFoto
Even dropouts can become great inventors
Here's Edison (right) and his inventor friend, George Eastman, who founded the Kodak Company. Eastman invented, among other things, photo paper and the film roll. In this photo, he's presenting a movie projector. But the pioneer had quit school just like Edison, and got an early start in business when his father died and he had to earn money to feed the family from the age of 14.
Image: AP
Becoming professor despite bad grades
Wilhelm Wien grew up in Ketrzyn in Masuria, Poland. He had to leave the local high school due to his bad grades, but he got private lessons and finished high school in the next big city - Königsberg in Eastern Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). He studied and received a PhD in Berlin and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1911 for his analysis of the laws of heat radiation.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
A Nobel Prize in one the "worst of subjects"
Physicist Rudolf Mößbauer got his high school diploma in 1955, long before the introduction of Germany's numerus clausus. He said he'd had problems with his school teachers and called physics "one of the worst subjects to study" – largely due to the bad quality of teaching. But he pursued the subject all the same, researched the laws of atomic nuclei, and received a Nobel Prize in 1961.
Image: picture-alliance/dapd
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The report was also welcomed by German Education Minister Anja Karliczek. "Our university and research location is becoming more and more attractive internationally," she said in a statement. "We can be proud of that and it should spur us on to be even better."
Indeed, Hillmann confirmed that there was room for improvement, and that universities were working to address the concerns of international students.
"Dropping out is an issue for foreign students," she said, pointing out that 45% of foreign students drop out in Germany, a much higher rate than the 28% among German students. "One would assume that language problems and other elements of the educational culture in Germany play a role, but also financial problems."
She went on to suggest that the 42,000 foreign students who graduated in Germany last year "form a significant and growing potential for covering our skilled labor needs."
Germany appears to be particularly attractive for Chinese students. The study shows that some 37,000 Chinese students came to Germany in 2018, the biggest nationality represented. China was followed by India, with 17,300 students, Austria (11,100), Russia (10,800) and Italy (8,900).
The report also found that some 24,000 international students were of the eight nationalities that file the most asylum applications in Germany: Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Eritrea, Pakistan and Somalia. "Syrian refugees currently form the sixth-highest foreign country of origin at German universities," the DZHW study said.
The trend also appears to be continuing, with some 282,000 international students registering for the 2017/2018 winter semester.
"The number of foreign academics at German universities has almost doubled in the last 10 years," DZHW academic director Monika Jungbauer-Gans said in a statement.
The exchange also goes both ways: around a third of German students spend at least some of their study time abroad.