Alternative Student Loans

If you’ve been offered a tuition postponement as part of your financial aid package, you may wish to do some research on loans in your home country which may have a more favourable interest rate. Should you find a more suitable bank loan to fully or partly cover Jacobs University’s tuition postponement, please contact the Office of Student Financial Services at sfs@jacobs-university.de, and we will adjust your financial aid package accordingly.

Bildungsfonds:
The most favourable alternative to any bank loan is the so-called Bildungsfonds. It offers students a monthly support of up to 1.000 EUR and helps with paying the tuition fees. The repayment starts as soon as a student has found a job after graduation and is dependant on the income then earned. You would then only pay back a certain percentage of your income over a given period of time. The total amount repaid could be the same, more or less of the amount you actually received. The Bildungsfonds is highly competitive and it awards funding to the best applicants only. Although the Bildungsfonds is not limited to German nationals, the information on the website indicates that you need to have a good knowledge, if not be fluent, in German. For more information, please see: http://www.bildungsfonds.de

Below is a list of a few interesting bank loans for German students and EU nationals (who have resided in Germany for the past 2-3 years).

KfW-Darlehen:
http://www.kfw.de/kfw/de/Inlandsfoerderung/Foerderberater/Studium_und_Beruf/index.jsp

Deutsche Bank Studienkredit:
www.deutsche-bank.de/studentenkredit

BafoeG:
http://www.das-neue-bafoeg.de/