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The canteen, and what a student ticket buys
German universities charge no tuition fees at public institutions, including for most international students — what you pay each semester is a Semesterbeitrag of somewhere between one and four hundred euros, covering student services and, in most states, a Semesterticket giving unlimited public transport for six months across the whole region. That single item is often worth more than the fee itself. The Mensa runs on the same principle: a hot meal for three or four euros, with staff and visitors paying a higher rate at the same counter. Student status also unlocks reduced entry almost everywhere — museums, theaters, cinemas, swimming pools — and Germans use it without embarrassment well into their late twenties, since degrees here often run longer than the Anglo-American norm. Worth knowing if you arrive as a student: the student card is the single most useful piece of plastic you will carry, and it is worth asking Gibt es eine Ermäßigung? at any till.