Erfurt (dpa/th) – The number of recipients of benefits under the Federal Training Assistance Act (Bafög) increased in Thuringia last year. There were a total of 23,033 Bafög recipients in the Free State, as the State Statistics Office announced on Monday in Erfurt. That was 1029 or 4.7 percent more than the year before.
According to this information, 16,208 students and 6,825 schoolchildren were funded. While the number of sponsored pupils fell by 9.7 percent compared to the previous year, the number of sponsored students rose by 12.2 percent.
On average, Bafög recipients received 527 euros per month, 3 euros more than in 2020. 4030 (59.0 percent) of the supported Thuringian schoolchildren received full funding, i.e. the maximum funding amount. This was 11.8 percent less than in the previous year. The number of fully funded students rose by 4.2 percent to 5,500. This corresponded to 33.9 percent of the funded students.
A total of 99.8 million euros was spent on Bafög recipients in Thuringia. That was 7.6 million euros or 8.2 percent more than a year earlier. 76.4 million euros were made available for student support, of which 51.5 percent was in the form of grants and 48.5 percent in the form of loans. 23.4 million euros were raised for student support.
