University of Erfurt welcomes 1046 new students for the winter semester

The number of first-year students in their first semester at the University of Erfurt, i.e. those studying at a German university for the first time, was 1046 as at 30 October. 144 of these are first-year students with a higher education entrance qualification from abroad. In addition, 656 students started a Master's degree programme in the winter semester 2025/26.

The Bachelor's programmes in Economics, Law and Social Sciences – Economics concentration, International Relations and Educational Science, as well as the Master's programmes in Psychology, Global Communication and Children's and Youth Media Studies, attracted more interest from first-year students this year.

"We are delighted that we can once again welcome so many new students to campus despite the enormous challenges of recent years and the overall decline in the number of school leavers," says Professor Julia Knop, Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of Erfurt. "This shows that we continue to score highly with our course offerings, good supervision right from the start and comparatively short study times. We are also pleased that, together with the school authorities, we were able to increase the number of first-year students in the dual study programme for secondary schools from 50 to 72 this year – another important contribution to countering the shortage of teachers at secondary schools in Thuringia, in addition to our regular teacher training programme."