Retirement provision and children's education in financing?

....a loan that the student gets themselves, without reporting to the parents, so independently as an adult and without having to provide collateral. That's a great thing, and yet it is not used very often, as I hear around me.

Unfortunately, the concept of education as an investment has been massively discredited in Germany. When I think about the discussions over a rather symbolic 500€ tuition fee. That's 5000€ for a master's degree; if it's not worth it to someone, why should the public then pay for it? Let's be honest, how many people in this forum could save 5000€ on their kitchen without really having to give up anything? Or on their bathroom? Unfortunately, a distorted ideal of studying has established itself in Germany: you don't go to lectures, you don't do exercises, you don't take exams, you graduate at some point. And you preferably learn nothing that is later relevant for the job but rather work towards the humanistic ideal ;) It was urgently necessary to break some of this up, through regular exams (which are also an opportunity since the final grades no longer depend on 1-2 dates but on long-term performance) and also through reasonable standard and maximum study periods. Of course, a lot was also messed up in the implementation, mainly by compressing a 10-semester diploma into a 6-semester bachelor without shortening the content. But much of that was not prescribed. In my time in the student council, for example, we accompanied the introduction of a 4-year bachelor. There was (at least in BW because education is a state matter ;) ) no rule that fixed 3 years. Similarly, with us, the maximum study period was always 150% of the standard study period, plus possibly a few months for the thesis. Anyone who wanted could therefore easily study for 8 years until the master's degree.

If you believe that a Magister degree before Bologna proceeded completely without performance records except for interim and final exams, I must unfortunately tell you that this is not true. Whether a boundlessly long period of study should be supported by society is something I think is still worth questioning, but even then there were corresponding reforms before Bologna. Bologna was above all an attempt to make the national education system more internationally compatible, and in doing so, they took one comb for all...

Study of the face? You just look in the mirror ....

When I read this here, memories of my own studies come up. Self-financed, still living at home, working side jobs for living and luxury (construction helper, industrial cleaning, editor at a trendy internet bubble start-up with a foosball table every half hour and a company bankrupt after one year, PR consulting, financial services, software company). It didn’t harm me, was fun at times, and a self-financed study brings life experience as well as equal opportunities. When I think of my more affluent fellow students, their financially sheltered situation was sometimes counterproductive. The entrepreneur’s daughter who always parked her Golf convertible directly in the no-parking zone in front of the university (Dad pays the tickets anyway) to do a bit of a university catwalk, the really lazy TT driver who was really 15-30 minutes late to every lecture and finally failed the last missing exam after 16 semesters, the son who got an apartment directly at the university as a gift for studying, the daughter of a car tuner who always came to university with a flashy car, etc., those who were “kept a bit short” were more productive (also or despite affluent parents) ....

And besides: Studies? Let the kids become craftsmen! A) they earn more afterwards and might be happier and B) they can then renovate your backlog of neglected retirement homes for free. ;-)

by compressing 10 semesters of a diploma into 6 semesters of a bachelor

That is incorrect. The bachelor is more like the basic studies (Vordiplom) in the diploma program, the master is the diploma.

Our daughter goes to the Danish school. If she wants to get her Abi AND still study AND not work on the side, she is welcome to go to the neighboring country for her studies. There, students have their costs reimbursed.
Otherwise, she is welcome to stay with us and commute to the study location (Flensburg, Kiel, Hamburg.... all quite easy to reach by train). I'll worry about that when the time comes, and until then, a lot of water will have flown under the bridge.
Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.

And will you then also tell her that if she were assigned the study place xyz in Heidelberg?

My opinion on this will not change; if I have the opportunity, I am happy to support her. And I certainly won’t “force” the offspring into a future choice with arguments like “it won’t hurt you, it didn’t hurt me” and “go there, it’s cheaper.”

You can almost get a bachelor's degree for free in Germany. After that, over 75% go straight into a job. They go through 1 year of trainee positions and often become bosses and get to have a say. I haven't met a young colleague with a master's degree for a long time.

And I stick to it, children also have to grow up sometimes and work for something. I don't work to earn property, retirement, and then the child's studies??? What kind of world are we living in