According to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), 36,000 non-matriculated students attended lectures at German universities during the 2025/2026 winter semester. This marks an increase of eight percent compared to the previous winter semester (2024/2025), which saw 33,200 participants. However, the total number remains below the level recorded before the COVID-19 pandemic in the 2019/2020 winter semester (37,200). The pandemic caused a significant decline in visitor participation during the 2020/2021 winter semester.
The recent rise in non-matriculated student numbers for the 2025/2026 semester was distributed relatively evenly across various age groups, a shift from previous years when the growth was predominantly observed among those aged 60 and over. The average age of these participants remained stable at 52 years old, and the proportion of female attendees also held steady at 48 percent compared to the prior year.
Further breakdown reveals that the number of German non-matriculated students increased by ten percent, reaching 32,200 in 2025/2026, while the count of foreign non-matriculated students saw a slight decrease of two percent, settling at 3,800. Consequently, foreign participants accounted for ten percent of the total non-matriculated student population that semester.
Non-matriculated students can attend individual courses and lectures without having achieved formal high school qualifications. Although participation does not lead to a degree, the program facilitates professional scientific development and serves as an important component of lifelong learning. The agency noted that these non-matriculated students represented only one percent of the roughly 2.9 million students formally enrolled during the same winter semester.
