According to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), the number of students eligible for higher education, having completed their final exams, has decreased for the third consecutive year. Preliminary results show that approximately 373,000 students in Germany earned their Abitur or Fachhochschulreife in the past year, a decrease of around 6,500 from the previous year, which represents a decline of 1.7 percent.
According to the statisticians, the number of eligible students decreased in almost all federal states, except for Bremen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Hesse, which saw a slight increase of 1.8, 0.4 and 0.2 percent, respectively. The largest decreases were observed in North Rhine-Westphalia, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, with a decline of nearly four percent in each of these states compared to the previous year.
The female proportion of eligible students remained constant at 54 percent in 2024, according to Destatis. The proportion of female students with a general or subject-bound higher education qualification was slightly higher at 55 percent, while the gender ratio was nearly even for those earning a Fachhochschulreife, with 51 percent of women and 49 percent of men.