🧭 Rights and obligations at a glance
In brief
There is no single "students' law". Instead, the status of "student" is treated differently in many separate laws: in the Federal Training Assistance Act (BAföG), in the Income Tax Act (child benefit), in Social Code Book V (health insurance) and in the Housing Benefit Act. Each of these laws has its own deadlines, its own responsible offices and its own age limits – if you miss a deadline at one office, you lose entitlements there, even if everything is still open at another office.
Most of the rules share a subsidiarity principle: training assistance, housing benefit and other social benefits generally require that your own income, assets and benefits that take priority (e.g. child benefit, or BAföG itself in relation to housing benefit) are used first.
Step by step
- Enrol and note deadlinesEnrolment starts several clocks at once: standard period of study, BAföG maximum funding period, age limits for family insurance and child benefit.
- Check BAföGEven if you are sceptical because of your parents' income, consider applying – a rejection notice "in principle" (dem Grunde nach) can matter elsewhere (e.g. for housing benefit).
- Sort out health insuranceFamily insurance through your parents or your own compulsory student insurance – a different rule applies depending on age and income.
- Secure child benefitDuring studies, child benefit runs only until the 25th birthday and must be proven to the Familienkasse.
- Keep part-time work within the limitsIf you work beyond the working student or minijob limits, you can put family insurance, the BAföG allowance or working student status at risk.
Deadlines
- Student status does not bring automatic "student discounts" on social benefits: BAföG is the exception with its own procedure; housing benefit and basic income support (Grundsicherungsgeld) are in fact excluded for most students.
- If you clearly exceed the standard period of study, you often lose several benefits at the same time – BAföG maximum funding period, family insurance and sometimes also places in halls of residence.
- Deadlines run independently at the BAföG office, Familienkasse, health insurance fund and university – missing a deadline at one office does not automatically affect the others.
In depth · legal basis, figures and practice – for advisers and professionals
A patchwork of separate laws
Training assistance follows the BAföG (a stand-alone act, not a Social Code book), child benefit the Income Tax Act (§ 32, § 62 ff. EStG) or, subsidiarily, the Federal Child Benefit Act, student health insurance SGB V (§ 5 Abs. 1 Nr. 9, § 10) and the exclusion from housing benefit the Housing Benefit Act (§ 20 WoGG). The working student privilege in turn does not rest on a single statutory provision but on the "Joint guidelines of the umbrella organisations of social insurance on the assessment of students' employment under insurance law" – an administrative practice, not a literal 20-hour rule in the statute.
Subsidiarity principle in two directions
For BAföG: your own income and assets and your parents' maintenance come first (§ 11 BAföG). For housing benefit the reverse applies: eligibility for BAföG "in principle" usually excludes housing benefit (§ 20 WoGG) – the subsidiarity principle here works against students, not for them, and is a frequent source of misunderstanding.
A question about your situation that this page does not answer? Write to us or use the contact form – we will tell you which office is responsible and what to bring. Free of charge, without individual legal advice.