Latest news with #SeppMüller
Local Germany
3 days ago
- Health
- Local Germany
Could foreign medical students in Germany be charged tuition fees?
For those who qualify for a place at a medical university in Germany, the country's public university system offers free tuition at world-class medical schools to German citizens and international students alike. But a high-ranking member of the German coalition government's DCU party has suggested re-thinking that as the country grapples with an acute and well-documented shortage of doctors and other medical professionals. In a recent interview with Bild newspaper, Sepp Müller, deputy chairman of the Christian Democrat (CDU) parliamentary group, said: 'Anyone who studies here should practice in rural areas for at least five years. Those who do not want to do so should repay the costs of this first-class education.' The comments follow revelations that doctors' surgeries in rural areas are closing due to a shortage of general practitioners. The Federal Ministry of Health recently confirmed that positions for more than 5,000 general practitioners (GP) were vacant in Germany at the end of 2023. READ ALSO: How German ministers want to boost skilled migration and integration Now it seems that the CDU's response to the problem is to make international medical students pay for their university tuition if they leave Germany within five years of graduating. Advertisement Would the plan work? The CDU has yet to offer a concrete plan on how international medical students who leave Germany within five years of graduating would be charged. Florian Müller, research policy spokesman for the CDU, told Bild that the federal states should regulate the reimbursement of study costs on their own. To give a sense of the costs that would be incurred, Germany's private universities currently charge between €63,000 and €125,000 in total for a medical degree. It is also unclear whether the CDU's plan would have any effect on easing the shortage of doctors in Germany. The proportion of foreign students studying medicine was approximately 8 percent of the total number of medical students in Germany in 2018, according to the report ' Wissenschaft weltoffen 2019 '. The figure is thought to have risen slightly in the years since. Advertisement READ ALSO: The state of healthcare in Germany has become worryingly frail
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Germany's CDU: Foreign medical students must work in Germany or pay
The German conservative party of Chancellor Friedrich Merz wants to charge foreign medical students for their studies if they return to their home countries immediately after graduation instead of working in Germany. "Anyone who studies here should practise in rural areas for at least five years. Those who do not wish to do so must repay the costs of this first-class education," Sepp Müller, deputy chair of the parliamentary group of the conservative CDU/CSU bloc, told the Bild newspaper in remarks published on Wednesday. Higher education, including medical school, is mainly free in Germany - to both foreign and domestic students. By contrast, in the United States both domestic and foreign students can pay some $60,000 per year - and more when housing and books are included. In the United Kingdom, annual international fees range between £43,700 ($59,232) at the Cardiff Medical School in Wales, to £67,194 at the Cambridge Medical School, according to UK testing site UKCAT The secretary of state in the German Health Ministry, Tino Sorge, also called for measures to prevent foreign medical students from returning to their home countries after completing their studies. "Our goal must be to retain such highly qualified professionals. We need to attract young doctors to work in Germany instead of watching them leave," the CDU politician told the newspaper. He added that each medical school place comes with significant costs. Florian Müller, the research policy spokesman for the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, told Bild that the federal states should independently regulate the repayment of study costs. "We need to focus much more on ensuring that international talents work in Germany after university," he said.
