Overview

• About 10,000 first‑semester students secured a medical place in winter 2024/25, while roughly 20,000 applicants were turned away, the CHE analysis reports.
• Per‑capita capacity varies sharply: Saarland offers 29 places per 100,000 residents and Mecklenburg‑Vorpommern 26, compared with Berlin at about 17 and North Rhine‑Westphalia at 13.
• Bremen and Brandenburg currently have no state‑funded medical places, with Brandenburg’s Medical University Lausitz scheduled to start training in winter 2026/27.
• Training locations correlate with higher local doctor density, suggesting graduates often remain near where they studied, according to CHE’s “Klebeeffekt” finding.
• State‑funded capacity has risen only slightly over a decade (from a little over 9,000 to around 10,000 places) as high costs of about €25,000 per student per year and long study durations limit growth, and private options (~1,500 starters) plus at least 9,100 Germans studying abroad do not close the gap.