Housing More Expensive for Students—Chemnitz Is an Inexpensive Outlier

Housing is becoming increasingly expensive for students—but the situation in eastern Germany is less dire than in the west. This is according to the MLP Student Housing Report, which was compiled in cooperation with the German Economic Institute (IW). Of all the German university cities surveyed, the Bafög housing allowance of 380 euros is sufficient to cover housing costs only in Chemnitz. There, a room in a shared apartment costs an average of 222 euros, and a student apartment costs an average of 277 euros.

Most East German states fall below the national average

According to the Housing Report, Magdeburg is the second-most affordable university city. While a room in a shared apartment costs 336 euros—which is still within the Bafög flat-rate housing allowance—a one-room apartment costs 393 euros, which is slightly above it. 

On average nationwide, a shared room costs 513 euros and a student apartment costs 567 euros. All university towns in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia that were examined in the report fall below this average. In Leipzig, a room costs 444 euros and an apartment costs 454 euros. In Jena and Dresden, on the other hand, students must pay an average of over 500 euros for their apartments and over 460 euros for their rooms.

Compared to the previous year, housing costs have risen by 2.6 percent nationwide. No uniform trend can be identified for the eastern part of the country: While rents in Leipzig actually fell by about 2 percent compared to the previous year, housing in Magdeburg has become nearly 6 percent more expensive since last year, according to the report.

Students Overburdened by Housing Costs

The MLP Student Housing Report stated: “According to the Federal Statistical Office, students running their own households spent an average of about 54 percent of their disposable household income on housing in 2025—more than twice as much as the general population.”

In Munich, for example—the city with the highest costs—students pay an average of 882 euros for an apartment and 849 euros for a room in a shared apartment. In Hamburg, students pay an average of over 730 euros for a room in a shared apartment.