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The number of students graduating for the first time from a German university has been stagnating in the last decade.
According to data from Destatis, the Federal Statistical Office, the first-time graduates were mainly young people between 21 and 29 years old, representing 86 per cent of all graduates. Women graduates dominated their male counterparts as they had a higher graduation rate – 36 per cent compared to 28 per cent, Studying-in-Germany.org reports.
As the data reveals, there were 301,300 first-time graduates in 2022, out of which the graduation rate was 32 per cent. Although some of the data have yet to be confirmed, as Destatis reveals, the number of inhabitants living in Germany is lower than in 2022 by 1.4 million people.
Most First-Time Graduates Come From Berlin, Data Show
More than half of all first-time graduates in 2023, representing 51 per cent of graduates in this group, were from Berlin.
On the other hand, Brandenburg was the state with the lowest share of first-time graduates – at 23 per cent. However, this is not entirely accurate, as many of the graduates in Berlin could be from Brandenburg.
- In general, the city states, with their diverse higher education landscape, benefit from the immigration of students from the surrounding areas. In 2023, the rate of first-time graduates in the city states was 41 per cent, and in the federal states, it was 31 per cent. Destatis
First-Time Graduates Rates Up by 1.7 Times in the Last Decade
As the data reveals, the rate of first-time graduates in 2023 was 1.7 times higher than those recorded in 2003. That means that during a two-decade period, the rates of first-time graduates were up from 18 per cent recorded in 2023.
The increase of first-time graduates rates kept going up until 2012. After that year, with the exception of 2020 and 2021 when the COVID-19 pandemic occurred, the proportion of first-time graduates in the age-specific population was between 31 per cent and 32 per cent each year.
In 2020, when COVID-19 was at its peak, the rate of first-time graduates dropped to 30 per cent because many exams were delayed for the upcoming semesters. In the years to come, students had to catch up with these exams, which caused the rate of first-time graduates to increase to 33 per cent immediately in the following year (2021).
