Studierendenwerk Vorderpfalz takes stock: 10 months of bridging assistance for students - € 1,894,900 paid out so far!
5,316 applications from students from Landau, Ludwigshafen, Speyer, Worms and Germersheim have been received by the Studierendenwerk Vorderpfalz up to April 2021.
- 2,341,400 € bridging assistance has been applied for so far
- 4,262 applications with a funding value of € 1,894,900 have been paid out
Since June 2020, the Studierendenwerk has been processing applications for bridging assistance for students, which the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has set up for students who have demonstrably fallen into financial hardship as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
"We would never have expected such a large number of applications at the beginning of the bridging assistance program, but we have to admit that the pandemic has really torn deep financial holes for many students," says Thomas Mosthaf, Head of Communication and one of the key users of the processing department, describing his experience with the bridging assistance program. "In normal years (e.g. 2019), Studierendenwerk only awards around 4,500 euros in direct aid to students who find themselves in a financial emergency through no fault of their own."
4,262 of the 5,316 bridging assistance applications were approved (80.2%), 948 applications (17.8%) had to be rejected and 106 applications (2%) are currently still being processed. On average, €444.60 was approved per application, in the vast majority of cases the maximum amount of €500. At present, it only takes one week from submission of the application to notification in the case of error-free applications. In over 90% of applications, however, the Studierendenwerk has to request additional documents because the application documents are incomplete or not entirely plausible or do not comply with the BMBF's funding guidelines.
Unfortunately, we have noticed that there are still students who do not make use of the possibilities offered by the Ü-Hilfe. Over 1/3 of the applications were not finally submitted. This may be because they generally do not want to make use of state aid or because they are simply overwhelmed by the application process. We often see the latter with international students who then fall through the aid cracks, as they are also denied access to BAföG or KFW loans and are urgently dependent on regular income to continue their studies.
"Then, of course, there are the structurally poor students whose financial hardship was not caused by coronavirus and who therefore cannot receive bridging assistance from us," says Manfred Kleinecke - Head of the Advice Department at Studierendenwerk - addressing one problem with bridging assistance. "These students were poor before the pandemic, are still poor during the pandemic and will be poor again after the pandemic."
Studierendenwerk is trying to help these students through its own relief fund and in 2020 reallocated some of its money from student project funding to emergency financial aid. In 2020, the aid fund money from the Studierendenwerk budget tripled to 13,200 euros.
The Studierendenwerk offers all students social and psychological counseling at finanzen.stw-vp.de also offers initial advice on student finance.
"A big thank you goes to my 16 employees who, in addition to their day-to-day work, master the package of application processing and bridging assistance, often across language barriers and in really complicated life situations that are difficult to assess," concludes Managing Director Andreas Schülke.
Important addresses for students in financial difficulties:
https://www.überbrückungshilfe-studierende.de
www.kfw.de/studienkredit-coronahilfe
https://www.studentenwerke.de/de/content/ueberbrueckungshilfe-fuer-studierende
Contact and further information at: www.stw-vp.de
