Refugees in Higher Education – Developments in 2019

Education at universities is not easily accessible for asylum seekers and refugees in Europe. The daily life of asylum seekers and provisionally admitted persons is highly regulated. When it comes to refugee students, the rules of the education system intersect with the ones on the asylum system, thus further restricting their access to higher education. These were our findings of an nccr – on the move research project, and a related Policy Brief, which ended in 2018. What has happened since then?

From 2017-2018, our project analyzed the situation of refugees who wanted to enroll at three universities in Switzerland, Germany, and France. In this study, we disentangled the interplay of four areas that structure the individual situation and between which different frictions can arise depending on the national contexts. The four areas are the following 1) the biographical experiences, 2) the asylum system, 3) the educational system, and 4) possibilities of funding education: e.g., through social security benefits, scholarships, or access to the job market. In a follow-up to this research, we observed a number of changes but also that supportive programs are still available to refugee students at all three universities.

France

France has seen a strong mobilization, especially by two groups, which have contributed to important reforms at the national level: the Migrants dans l’Enseignement Supérieur (MEnS) network consisting of university representatives and Réseau Etudes Supérieures et Orientation des Migrant.e.s et des Exilé.e.s (RESOME), a group of students, teachers, individuals, and associations. Scholarships have been made accessible to beneficiaries of subsidiary protection, and a new preparatory program (Diplôme d’université (DU) PASSERELLE étudiants en exil) has been established for refugees. The fact that the participants of this program are fully eligible for regular scholarships (CROUS) makes it particularly attractive for young refugee students in a precarious financial situation, as normally funding depends on various factors, such as enrollment in a program, age, and legal status.

At the University in Mulhouse, the project supporting refugee students persists, but it lacks funding for institutionalization and for covering the students’ living expenses. The above-mentioned scholarship reform does not seem to have positive effects here. Students still have to decide between work and education, which is why the university aims at introducing the DU PASSERELLE.

Switzerland

In Switzerland, an integration agenda for refugees has been adopted with a focus on apprenticeships. The planned measures seem promising, as they acknowledge the fact that changing and overlapping competencies can be both confusing for aspiring refugee students and harmful for a coherent empowerment approach. While a refugee used to be advised by various professionals in different institutions, one contact person will henceforth be responsible for monitoring his or her ‘integration process’ and systematically redirect him or her towards relevant offices.

At the cantonal level, Basel-Stadt has been enforcing a strict separation of social aid and scholarships. This makes it difficult for persons who depend on welfare to enter the scholarship system. The cantonal authorities are striving for more streamlined coordination of the two systems with a pilot project launched by the scholarship department. In a joint venture, the cantonal departments of education and social services and a private foundation, the Christoph Merian Stiftung, are offering 50 scholarships per year to persons, who cannot receive state scholarships as a result of their residence permit.

The student association “Offener Hörsaal” at the University of Basel has expanded its activities to support similar projects in other institutions and provide alternatives for participants, who decide not to continue their studies. The association also offers preparation classes for the expensive ECUS-test (Examen Complémentaire des Hautes Écoles Suisses) taught by volunteers and sponsors the first regular semester of university studies. At the national level, the Swiss Student Union is still working on the topic and running the information web page “Perspectives Studies”.

Germany

In Freiburg, there is still a coordination office for refugee students, while other support measures have been reduced. For instance, the free language courses, previously financed by “Integra” (DAAD), a national program that funded 166 projects in Germany, are no longer available. The student project “Uni für alle” in Freiburg is ongoing and running with a relatively stable number of participants. A new challenge to this project is the support of former participants, who are now regular students and feel stressed by the new situation.

Despite national investments into the education system, refugee students continue to experience tensions between the education and asylum systems. For example, the mobility of asylum applicants remains restrained and creates high costs if they need to reach a city with a university or preparatory institute (Studienkolleg).

Conclusion

We have observed a diversification of measures offered to (potential) refugee students in all three universities. New challenges emerged, mainly in terms of accompanying refugees who managed to enroll as well as those who could not. We also found that volunteer initiatives continue to step in, where the measures provided by different systems create gaps or need to be improved. For example, state-offered language courses in France are rare and come late in the asylum process, so universities offer courses beginning at language level A1. Or, preparing for the ECUS test in Switzerland is very costly, therefore, “Offener Hörsaal” offers support.

In addition, new actors are setting up structures alongside or loosely connected to the university system. Examples for this new development include Powercoders in Switzerland or the program “Wintegreat” in France offering shorter courses specifically for refugees.

Tim Harder co-founded the association Offener Hörsaal during his studies of European Global Studies at the University of Basel.

Katrin Sontag is a cultural anthropologist at the University of Basel and PostDoc in the project Perimeters of Multilayered Democratic Citizenship in a Mobile and Multicultural World.

Notes by authors: This article refers to the situation in 2019. We use the term refugee as an umbrella term to include persons in the process of applying for asylum, temporarily accepted persons, and recognized refugees. We are using „scholarship“ as an umbrella term and are aware of very different meanings and institutions involved in the different contexts.

Acknowledgments: We would like to thank Sarah Wipfli for her review.