New: Free MA Program in Philosophy
The University of Leipzig is launching a new, tuition-free English-language Master of Arts program in philosophy.
Professor Kristina Musholt writes that it is a two-year program “with a diverse range of courses that create the conditions for acquiring in-depth skills in academic work, placing particular emphasis on guiding and promoting independent philosophical research.”
The program, which is accepting applications now, will start in the winter term of 2026-27, which runs October through March.
You can learn more about the program at the University of Leipzig Institute for Philosophy website, with instructions about applying here. Advice for international students is here.
Being free does not distinguish this program from a lot of other master’s programs in Europe. I cannot speak for what goes on in all countries, but certainly in Austria and Germany education at public universities costs very little, even for foreign students. At the University of Salzburg we have a master’s program conducted in English that costs 752 Euros per semester for citizens of non-EU countries. It appears that Leipzig is charging less than that (but not nothing). I am sure that Prof. Musholt did not intend to mislead anyone about this, because the low cost of higher education to students is common knowledge around here.
Where does the idea come from that Prof. Musholt may mislead? The program is new, that’s the news. Further detail, probably of special interest to American readers: the program is free. And the quote by Prof. Musholt does not even involve the words “new” or “free.”
Where does the idea come from that I was accusing her of misleading? I explicitly said I was sure she wasn’t doing so. But the lead to this article said “free” and the first line said “free”. So someone from other parts might have thought that that was supposed to be a distinguishing feature. I wanted to point out that it isn’t while clearing my friend Kristina Musholt of any suspicion of having meant it was.
Just for the record it was very clear to me you meant that
It doesn’t matter how much tuition is or isn’t when full-time master’s students who are not on a scholarship will need to worry about paying for student insurance and finding part-time employment (or full-time, as the case may be, in which case they must apply for special permission and pay into a pension fund whose benefits they will never enjoy). This depends on whether or not they get off the waitlist for student accommodation and, failing that, the cost of living in private accommodation. Lower costs of living further from universities are likely to entail higher transportation expenses. Don’t forget that German bureaucracy is tailored to EU-residents. Because tuition is so cheap or even free, administrators have no incentive to accommodate non-EU residents through even the most low-effort of initiatives such as dividing forms into multiple sections, one for EU-residents only, the other for non-EU residents. The U.S. banking system, for example, doesn’t have equivalents for most of the information requested on these forms and many American master’s students will not know that. Where can they turn for help? The help line at LMU-Münich, for instance, is only open for two hours a day, two days a week. Even if that’s often enough to get the information you need in time to submit a form ahead of other students and secure accommodation, there’s no guarantee that the person on the other end will speak enough English to help an international student–even if your academic program is taught in English and requires only A1 German fluency only after the first year. Unless a student gets a DAAD or a Fulbright or some other scholarship or fellowship that will enable them to study full-time without working full-time, the whole process will be fraught with risk, confusion, and inconvenience even if the master’s program is “free”. It looks great on paper but in practice, German bureaucracy is worse than the DMV. UI/UX is horrendous since software developers have to contend with two APIs which further complicates the process for people using the “translate” function on online forms. Finally, student insurance companies snail-mail verification codes which eats up more time and causes even greater inconvenience to master’s students who are just trying to find accommodation and matriculate. This video by Sabine Hossenfelder about why German academia sucks is worth a watch for anyone considering studying there (there’s a reason why there are so many German professors in the states who pursue tenure here in the U.S. before returning home rather than taking the direct habilitation route):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ZZ-Yni8Fg
The Kafkaesque carousel of “must have accommodation in order to register for student insurance, must register for student insurance in order to matriculate as a master’s student, must matriculate as a master’s student in order to apply for student accommodation” is such a nightmare. I can’t imagine why anyone would choose a master’s program in Germany over a Ph.D. in the states with an en-route master’s. Protestant Europe is cold, dark, and inhospitable. The people will look down their noses at you the moment they hear your American accent. You will be stared at on public transport and scoffingly patronized by fluent English speakers for presuming to practice your German. You can try your best to atone for the your country’s miserable reputation and ingratiate yourself to strangers through self-deprecation but ultimately, that’s not going to win you friends or even respect. Unless you have friends and family of your own over there, you’re on your own. You’re not wanted so do yourself and everyone else a favor and don’t bother.
I can’t tell if this is a disgruntled American or a disgruntled German, but I take strong exception to ever telling people ‘you’re not welcome’ as an immigrant to a country.
As someone with an American accent who has lived and worked in Germany, this was emphatically not a good representation of my experience. Also, given that my US family lives in a city that has been under siege for months by ICE agents–to the point where people are afraid to leave their homes to go shopping and attend school–I can *very much* imagine why people would choose European over American programs right now. Whoever wrote this comment seems utterly out of touch with current political and social realities in both countries.
I can confirm that parts of central Europe have rather dark weather, and that Germans make more eye contact in public than folks in other countries–you can make minor complaints about the weather and culture for any country on earth. Other than that, my experience in Germany was completely the opposite of what this person described. I never had anyone scoff at me for speaking German to them, if anything people seemed very delighted that I bothered to learn it. I felt completely welcomed in Germany and experienced a much higher overall quality of life than I had previously had. I made good friends among both Germans and other immigrants. Most of the other immigrants I knew really appreciated their life in Germany, to the point where I knew multiple people in the process of applying for citizenship (despite the admittedly major bureaucratic hurdles). Let’s not scare people away from making sound life decisions by engaging in overwrought scare tactics and xenophobic rhetoric.
Thanks for acknowledging the “admittedly major bureaucratic hurdles”, I’m glad we’re both in touch with those.
Navigating these things is half the glory!
There’s no glory in struggling alone.
I’m just teasing, mate. I enjoyed being a student in Germany in an earlier age. What you write seems to me correct, just a touch negative. The offices have two hours per week for public visitors. Fine! Follow the schedule. You need to be pretty fluent in German in order for anyone to speak it to you. Kafka-esque, perhaps, but this spurred me to wake up early and work harder on mastering the language. When you enter a conversation you need to be perfect (“you’re in or you’re out,” a German friend told me; by contrast we are used to bad English passing for English). Fine, get your sentences correct! Registering for health insurance and other things was tricky, but when you finally pass as an acceptable Ausländer it is in fact glorious. And I say that as an American who knows – your commenter below is also correct, just a touch hard on us – that being a foreigner does not come easily for Americans. I recommend assimilation into foreign norms, bureaucratic or not, for any curious young person.
The point of noting how seldom the helpline was open was to indicate that time-sensitive matters like getting off of an accommodation waitlist are liable to become insurmountable obstacles if an international student doesn’t know exactly what to expect going in. By the time you get the help you need, it may be too late. Again, it’s better to have friends and/or family in the country who know what to expect than to think it will be like studying in the U.K., for example. Making an effort to acquire the language as an international student who didn’t grow up studying it formally or speaking it at home will not be rewarded if opportunities for practice demand mastery, no matter how much one studies it informally ahead of time. Learning German is one of the main draws of studying in Germany in principle and I think it’s important that people are realistic about their prospects of actually learning German by immersion in actual practice. It’s not like studying a foreign language in Latin America or Southwest Asia where there is ample opportunity to practice a language as a learner.
Damn you’re paranoid. The problem isn’t Germany, it’s lofty American expectations. It just sounds like your miserable not being woven into the comfortable security blanket of your hometown and having to suffer through being a foreigner is just to much for your fragile american soul. If people laugh at you, laugh with them, have a sense of humor instead of crawling into your little star spangled shell, that just makes you more of a laughing stock. Get over it, your grievances are petty and pathetic, and noone’s going to accommodate you, that you have to do yourself. Crying about it just makes it worse.
Ignore the bureaucratic hurdles if you like but you’re missing the main point. Jumping down my throat with vitriolic ad hominems isn’t going to rattle me. No one’s crying about anything, hopefully some people reading this comment will be grateful to read about the obstacles no university administrators or faculty members are going to flag on their behalf.
*you’re miserable
*just too much
*star-spangled
*no one’s
Problems international students face when studying in Germany: government hotlines can be unhelpful and you have to pay for food and transportation, two issues that never arise at American MA programs.
Problems international students face when studying in America: you might get shipped off to a supermax prison in El Salvadaor, or shot in the head for no reason and your corpse branded a bloodthirsty terrorist.
I can’t imagine why applying to U of Leipzig might be tempting to grad students…
Europeans seeking citizenship in America have historically had 67–68% chances of success. As per Eurostat immigration data from CanadaCIS, non-EU residents seeking citizenship in Germany from 2009 to 2021 have had a success rate of less than 2%. The past couple of years in the U.S. have been a fever dream but try a decade on for size. Again, non-EU residents are not wanted. If Americans are going to flock to German graduate programs the way so many brilliant German citizens sought refuge in the U.S. when Hitler came to power, they need to be prepared to face the astronomical odds of actually making a life there.
You are probably right that it is historically easier for Europeans to become citizens in America than the reverse. However, the stats that you provided are non-EU to Germany not America to Germany so it is not a direct comparison. I am sure if you looked at the chance for all non-Americans it would be much less than 67-68%
Is it available as an online course?
Lmao funniest thread on here in a while: American complaining that other countries have rules, German showing that they in fact have no chill. Ich liebe uns.