FAQs BAföG and financial aids in times of the Corona pandemic

No. As the Federal Ministry of Education and Research has informed by decree, the postpone of the lecture period has no impact on the BAföG claim. students do not currently have to worry that they they will not receive money in or for April, regardless of whether they are to start their study on the university or have already received the financial support of BAföG. Self-learning and online studies also count as study activities. As long as no decisions has been issued for the Summer Term 2020, it is important that the application has to be submitted in April at the latest, .

BAföG has a solution if parental income drops unexpectedly! Normally, the parental income from the calendar year before last is taken into account when calculating BAföG. If now, for example because of short-time work due to the COVID-19 pandemic, parents lose part of their income, then this can be taken into account for BAföG recipients!

• Trainees must submit an update application on which the parents must give details of their current income and also sign it. The update application is available at https://www.bafög.de/de/alle-antragsformulare-432.php (form 7).
• If by now you have only received a low or no BAföG rate based on the income of your parents, you can make an update application and the amount of your current BAföG claim will be examined.

Please contact the Office for Educational Support (Amt für Ausbildungsförderung) if you have any further questions.

Yes, if the parents are still capable (see above, otherwise BAföG claim if applicable). After all, even if you are doing self-study (reading specialist literature, researching for and writing homeworks or papers etc.) or online study, these also count as study activities. Parents also have to accept exceptional delays and interruptions of the education, as well as the resulting extension of the maintenance payment duration (§ 242 BGB). In case of delays and interruptions of the education, it has to be considered on a case-to-case basis, especially, whether there are creditable reasons for the delay. At this moment, since the upcoming development of the situation is predictable, a delay of the study will not at all be considered as a violation of the regular education duration, provided that the delay bases on the official measures. However, you should use the extended lecture-free period as time for self-study instead of as a holiday.

The current epidemic situation alone is not a reason for taking a vacation semester, as all students are confronted with it.

If you have any questions concerning the requirements for receiving benefits according to SGB II during the vacation semester, the social Counseling is at your disposal by telephone. You are then not allowed to do any academic work during a vacation semester of leave, for example.

Students of the Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg on the other hand can take a vacation semester:
Due to the Corona Ordinance in force since 17 April, the Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg gives students the opportunity to take leave of absence due to the pandemic. Students may take leave of absence if they are enrolled at the university (§15 ZImmO and §34 Abs 1 Corona Statute) and if they attend courses and take part in examinations for the summer semester despite taking leave of absence (§34 Abs 2 Corona Statute)- the purchase of a semester ticket is excluded; the leave of absence fee is 133 Euro.

Attention: Whoever takes a leave of absence is not entitled to receive BAföG.

The eligibility Criteria for Housing Subsidy remain the same. 

If you do not have any income due to losing your job or not receiving the wages, you are not automatically entitled to claim Housing Subsidy. The basic requirement of a BAföG refusal "on the merits" and the examination of the coverage of the monthly living costs remains.

No, you can not automatically clam ALB II-Services. Full time students are excluded from SGB II-Services (see § 7 Abs. 5 SGB II). Only a few exceptions exist. For example:

• Taking a vacation semester because of a pregnancy or raising a child or being on leave because of illness or impairment. The important part is, that there are no student activities during this leave. Otherwise the ALG II-Services are at risk and can be reclaimed. Other than that, there are additional requirements. For getting to know whether you can claim ALG II or not, please give our social guidance a call
• Being a part time student because of pregnancy or raising a child or being on leave because of illness or impairment. Here, there are additional requirements as well and things to look out for. Please get guidance from our social guidance team. 
• in hardship, for example in undeserved losing of funding and far advanced studies, the job center can check if services as loan after § 27 Abs. 3 SGB II are applicable.
• claim for additional requirements at specific beneficiaries after § 21 SGB II

You can look for new jobs at our Studierendenwerks job placement service. Please be aware of the current procedure of our job placement service. You can check the procedure at https://www.swfr.de/en/money/studijob/job-placement-service/

Currently, there are fields needing additional personal. Try to actively apply there:

• Delivery services for food and beverages
• Supermarkets and grocery stores
• cleaning companies
• Gas stations
• Harvest workers. For harvest work you can check this new website: www.daslandhilft.de

No. Students health-, care- and unemployment-insurance free. Therefore, who does not pay for the unemployment-insurance can not get short-time work allowance.

The only exceptions to this rule are currently:

• Part-time students, i.e. students who have previously worked more than 20 hours per week subject to social insurance contributions. This group of people can receive short-time work allowance or unemployment benefit.
• Students who cannot receive BAföG and have now lost their income can apply for unemployment benefit at the Job Centre.  As a rule, you must apply for a semester of leave of absence for this purpose. This is not the case now. However, you will probably have to pay back the money you receive from the job centre later. Please note: You cannot get money from the Jobcenter if you are in Germany on a student visa.

The infection protection law (IfSG) enables severe measures to tackle the spreading of infectious diseases and to ease their treatment. Measures can include quarantine or prohibitions of activities. Concrete official prohibitions of activities or official quarantine measures against one person with infectious potential can enable a compensation claim after the IfSG. Caution: quarantine at your free will does not enable any compensation claim.After  § 56 Abs. 2 IfSG, the compensation is depended on the loss of earnings. For the first six weeks, the compensation will be as high as the loss of earnings. Starting in week seven, the compensation will be as high as the sick payment after § 47 Abs. 1 of the 5th social law book, as long as the loss of earnings does not exceed the annual salary limit for the compulsory health insurance.

For self-employed persons the compensation is measured using the earnings of the last 12 months (average earnings for the year before the prohibition of said activity). Self-employed persons who are at risk of existence as a result of a measure under the IfSG can be reimbursed to an appropriate extent by the competent authority for any additional expenses incurred during the lost earnings periods. 

Compensation is only available on application and the application deadlines are very short! Applications must be submitted to the competent authority within three months of the cessation of the prohibited activity or the end of the segregation (quarantine).

Please actively contact e.g.. your health insurance, your landlord, your phone provider, the radio licensee etc. if you can not afford to pay them. Ask for a deferral of your contributions and, if necessary, a dunning block. If you are able to, you could ask if a reduced amount can be paid.

Get advice from the “Financial Aid” of the Studierendenwerk. At the moment you can best reach the advisors by email at Sozialberatung@swfr.de or by phone at 0761 / 2101-233.