Bafög offices print out digital applications

Many students in Germany are dependent on student loans. But the offices are struggling with digitization. Months of waiting are the result, like one Wireless– research revealed. Because: The offices even print out digital applications.

In Germany, students can receive financial support in the form of Bafög. Have more than 467,000 students in 2021 made use of it.

But since the start of the winter semester, many students are still waiting for their money this year. This is mainly due to the lack of digitization of the offices, as from a research by Wireless emerges.

Why are so many currently waiting for their student loans?

Since September 2021, students have been able to submit their BAföG applications online. After years of paperwork, that initially sounds like a relief.

However, in practice it looks very different. As the umbrella organization of student unions explains, the digital applications “have fatal consequences in practice”.

Because the workload in the Bafög offices is particularly high at the start of the winter semester. Because the numerous follow-up applications are joined by many first-time applications from first-year students.

According to the report of Wireless It can take two to three months for an application to be approved. “Since the subsidy benefits after the Bafög are paid in advance at the end of the month for the following month, in the worst case there can be a period of four to five weeks between the final processing of the application and the payment to the applicant,” quoted Wireless a position in Rhineland-Palatinate.

Offices must print online applications

The problem lies in the processing of online applications. Because it cannot be done digitally. As a result, the offices have to “print out the applications manually”, as the federal association says.

The pressure load in the BAföG offices is so high that additional staff have to be hired specifically for this purpose: to print out digital applications.

That leads the “digitization ad absurdum”, says Matthias Anbuhl, General Secretary of the German Student Union.

But the lack of staff to print out the applications is not the only problem. Because there is also a shortage of paper.

Student unions demand better digitization

In the meantime, many students have been waiting for their financial support for months. So also the student Daniel G., the Wireless quotes: “I’ve been waiting for five months now and some of my friends even significantly longer. It’s really very difficult for students who don’t come from a good background to survive, let alone focus on their studies.”

In addition to the long processing time, the many inquiries from students are also problematic. Here there is a lack of “a platform to be able to communicate with the students in encrypted form,” says Matthias Anbuhl from the German Student Union.

Because up to now, the authorities always had to answer any e-mail inquiries by post for data protection reasons if personal data was included.

The Deutsches Studentenwerk is therefore calling for the introduction of e-files and e-approvals in order to speed up communication with students. In Saxony-Anhalt, this should already happen in the coming year.

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