Online survey on the BAföG service

In November/December 2017, Studentenwerk Dresden conducted its 7th online survey on student finance after a 4-year break. A total of 2,705 students from the universities in Dresden, Zittau and Görlitz took part.

Studentenwerk Dresden wanted to know how students rate the work of the BAföG office. Various criteria, such as the length of waiting times before the consultation, telephone availability, appearance and friendliness of the clerks were given for evaluation. The best ratings were given to the comprehensibility of personal advice (2.22) and the professional competence of the caseworkers (2.26). The worst ratings were given to the consultation times of the clerks (3.05) and the length of the processing time (3.21).

The evaluation of the survey showed that only 84% of all survey participants had already applied for BAföG. 76% of respondents had already obtained information about BAföG before submitting their application. For this purpose, 1,653 participants used the Studentenwerk Dresden website. Only 20% of all respondents had already sought advice at the service office of the BAföG office. Only 46% had received personal advice from their responsible case officer.

It can be seen that personal contacts are on the decline. It would be desirable for students to make more use of personal consultations during office hours or in the service office. A direct conversation often allows problems that lead to delays in application processing to be resolved more quickly.

Finally, the respondents were asked specifically: "What do you think is good?" and "What do you think could be improved?"

Some of the comments were praiseworthy:

• Response letters that are pretty specific about when something is missing
• that this type of student financing exists in Germany at all
• short waiting times and accessibility by public transport
• that the staff are also very easy to contact by email
• that (my) BAföG applications were always processed quickly
• the professionally competent and yet friendly approach (with me), even with the 5th question on the subject

Some of the critical comments:

• Responsibilities of the clerks change too often
• Duration of the processing time
• BAföG is not enough to live in big cities

In general, many respondents felt that the availability of caseworkers could be improved. This includes both the availability of caseworkers by telephone and communication by email, which contradicts some of the praising comments. Many survey participants noted that one afternoon opening time per week is not enough.

The Office for Educational Support is working on improving some of the points of criticism. As a first measure, an additional opening time is to be introduced. From May 8, an additional opening time will therefore be offered every Tuesday from 1 to 3 pm. In future, anyone seeking advice will be able to visit their advisor at the following times: Tuesdays from 9 am to 12 noon and from 1 pm to 3 pm and Thursdays from 1 pm to 5 pm. As the clerks will be available in person on Tuesdays in the mornings and afternoons, the service office will remain closed on this day.

Unfortunately, it is currently not possible to implement the wish expressed by many survey participants for unrestricted e-mail contact between the Office for Training Assistance and BAföG recipients. As only unencrypted e-mails can be sent at present, the protection of applicants' data is not guaranteed. Anyone who has no problems with the lack of encryption can of course still communicate with the BAföG office by e-mail. However, they must first give their consent by completing and signing the declaration form "Allgemeine Bedingungen über die Nutzung von E-Mails für die Kommunikation mit dem Studentenwerk Dresden". If you are interested, you can obtain both the declaration form and further information on this from your case officer and from the BAföG Office.

In the future, further suggestions for improvement from BAföG recipients will be implemented. We will report on this here in due course. Studentenwerk Dresden would like to thank everyone who took part in the online survey!

Results of the online survey on student financing

Source: SPIEGEL-EI (published in issue 02/2018 (07.05.2018 to 27.05.2018)