Campaign: 129-euro semester ticket

As AStA of RWTH Aachen University we join the demand of the Landes-ASten-Treffen (LAT) NRW* to implement a Germany-wide valid 129-Euro-Semesterticket financed by the students as community of solidarity.

If you click on the button, you can write a mail prepared by us to the Aachen members of the governing parties in the NRW federal parliament and the German Bundestag, the transport ministries in the state and the federal government, the NRW Ministry of Science and the German Ministry of Education and Research. All you have to do is put your name beneath the mail, we have prepared everything else for you. Of course, you can also customize the text and give it a personal touch.

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Due to the length of the text, the button or link unfortunately only works on a mobile device without problems. On a desktop PC, the recipient and subject are automatically filled in when clicked. The text of the email can be copied below and pasted manually.

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The German government plans to introduce a “Deutschlandticket” in 2023. This will make it possible to use public transport throughout Germany for 49 euros a month. This will have a massive impact on the NRW semester ticket, which allows students in NRW to use public transport throughout NRW.

The Aachen semester ticket currently costs about 33 euros per month. The ticket is provided to all students and is paid for by all students in a solidary way via the semester fee. Therefore, the student body forms a community of solidarity in which everyone pays the same amount for the ticket – regardless of how much the individual person uses the ticket. This is the only reason why the semester ticket can be offered so cheaply. It is currently cheaper than comparable tickets by a factor of ten, but if the semester ticket were to be abolished and students had to resort to the 49-euro ticket, mobility would become significantly more expensive for most.

But affordable mobility is particularly important for the group of students, as a majority has only a low income. The income is usually significantly below the poverty line in Germay of 1251 euros per month. For comparison: the BAföG maximum rate is currently 934 euros per month – and not even 11% of students receive BAföG at all.

In addition, ecological aspects must also be taken into account, because since the introduction of the semester ticket, the proportion of students in NRW who travel to university by car has fallen sharply. And the university also has to build fewer vehicle parking spaces as a result of the semester ticket. Abolishing the ticket would mean that the already scarce space in the city would have to make way for even more parking spaces.

Further, the student body, as a community of solidarity, is able to refund the mobility fee to individual students in justified cases due to social hardship. Since the beginning of the Corona pandemic, the number of applications has multiplied and, given the ongoing energy crisis, a further increase is to be expected. This would no longer be possible if the semester ticket were abolished.

In order for the semester ticket to have a future, reforms will be necessary with the introduction of the “49-Euro-Ticket”: students should also be able to benefit from the new ticket and use public transportation throughout Germany instead of “only” in NRW, which is the case now. In addition, the solidarity model – as described above – enables a further price advantage for students without additional state support. Legally, this price advantage is also necessary to allow solidarity financing.

It is now the task of the state and federal government to establish the conditions for the further development of the successful model semester ticket and thus to ensure affordable and sustainable student mobility!

Now we need you! In order to give more weight to our demands, we want to draw the attention of the Aachen state and federal parliament members of the governing parties as well as the responsible ministers to the situation of the students. If enough people put pressure on them, the state and federal governments cannot implement a “49-Euro-Ticket” without offering a solution for the more than 750,000 students in NRW and the more than 2.9 million students in Germany!

*LAT NRW is the voluntary association of the students’ union executive boards (ASten) or university-wide student representations and therefore a democratically legitimized, state-wide representation of interests of the student bodies in NRW.

iOS: If the button isn’t working, please use this link.

Due to the length of the text, the button or link unfortunately only works on a mobile device without problems. On a desktop PC, the recipient and subject are automatically filled in when clicked. The text of the email can be copied below and pasted manually.

iOS: If the button isn’t working, please use this link.

If you click on the button, you can write a mail prepared by us to the Aachen members of the governing parties in the NRW federal parliament and the German Bundestag, the transport ministries in the state and the federal government, the NRW Ministry of Science and the German Ministry of Education and Research. All you have to do is put your name beneath the mail, we have prepared everything else for you. Of course, you can also customize the text and give it a personal touch.

Dear German Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger,
Dear German Minister Volker Wissing,
Dear NRW Minister Ina Brandes,
Dear NRW Minister Oliver Krischer,
Dear Members of the Bundestag,
Dear Members of the NRW State Parliament,

Students mobility must be considered when the “49-Euro-Ticket” is introduced. The relief that is made possible for normal subscription customers must also benefit students. That is why I, together with many other students from NRW, am calling for a semester ticket that costs 129 euros per semester and is valid throughout Germany. 

Students are dependent on affordable and sustainable mobility to reach the university – not only in view of enormous price increases for everyday life. The semester ticket, which is administered by the student’s union executive board (AStA), is essential for this. Because: The student body forms a solidaric community in which all members pay the same amount – regardless of a persons actual use of the ticket. For this reason, the solidarity-financed NRW semester ticket, for example, is currently ten times cheaper than comparable tickets.

Politicians must create the conditions for the implementation of a future-oriented semester ticket! Abolishing the successful semester ticket model would make mobility significantly more expensive for many students. This would contradict the financially strained situation of many students as well as the basic idea behind the “49-Euro-Ticket”, to make mobility more affordable for everyone and to make public transport more attractive.

I would be pleased if you would consider the needs of the more than 750,000 students in NRW and the more than 2.9 million students in Germany!

Yours sincerely,

iOS: If the button isn’t working, please use this link.

Due to the length of the text, the button or link unfortunately only works on a mobile device without problems. On a desktop PC, the recipient and subject are automatically filled in when clicked. The text of the email can be copied above and pasted manually.

iOS: If the button isn’t working, please use this link.

Our campaign addresses the following Members of Parliament and ministries:

Astrid Vogelheim, MdL B90/Grüne (Direct mandate Aachen I)
Annika Fohn, MdL CDU (Direct mandate Aachen II)
Werner Pfeil, MdL FDP
Laura Postma, MdL B90/Grüne
Daniel Scheen-Pauls, MdL CDU
Hendrik Schmitz, MdL CDU
Ina Brandes, NRW Minister of Culture and Science, CDU
Oliver Krischer, NRW Minister for the Environment, Nature Protection and Transport, B90/Grüne

Lukas Benner, MdB B90/Grüne
Armin Laschet, MdB CDU
Claudia Moll, MdB SPD
Ye-One Rhie, MdB SPD
Catarina dos Santos-Wintz, MdB CDU
Bettina Stark-Watzinger, German Minister for Education and Research, FDP
Volker Wissing, German Minister for Digitalization and Transport, FDP

iOS: If the button isn’t working, please use this link.

Due to the length of the text, the button or link unfortunately only works on a mobile device without problems. On a desktop PC, the recipient and subject are automatically filled in when clicked. The text of the email can be copied above and pasted manually.

iOS: If the button isn’t working, please use this link.

Contact

If you have any question regarding the campaign, please contact sross@asta.rwth-aachen.de. Press inquiries can be addressed to the AStA chairwoman at vorsitz@asta.rwth-aachen.de.