I second what people said above: it's not bad over here, but it absolutely isn't the promised land, either. Recent reforms have brought tight curricula and thus made studying what interests you a lot harder.
And while studying is a lot cheaper -- with fees, train ticket and social compensation stuff, I pay roughly 500 € a semester in total, which is about average afaik, plus the usual living expenses (rent, food, the yadda) -- this comes at the cost of much larger classes (often with hundreds of people, very rarely less than 30), and subsequently stressed-out and often unfriendly profs who don't have time for individual students and usually don't know you by name. (Though with a "smaller" (attendance-wise) subject like History, that's less extreme than it was in English when I still did that, or what I've heard from the business-related subjects.
Before you decide on where to apply, make sure you check the subject-specific uni-rankings (must be somewhere on the internet), because the quality differences are huge. Often, small universities trump the big ones like Berlin, Munich, or Cologne. Obviously, I'm all in favour of Münster and you should consider it advertised for special consideration. ";-)
no subject
And while studying is a lot cheaper -- with fees, train ticket and social compensation stuff, I pay roughly 500 € a semester in total, which is about average afaik, plus the usual living expenses (rent, food, the yadda) -- this comes at the cost of much larger classes (often with hundreds of people, very rarely less than 30), and subsequently stressed-out and often unfriendly profs who don't have time for individual students and usually don't know you by name. (Though with a "smaller" (attendance-wise) subject like History, that's less extreme than it was in English when I still did that, or what I've heard from the business-related subjects.
Before you decide on where to apply, make sure you check the subject-specific uni-rankings (must be somewhere on the internet), because the quality differences are huge. Often, small universities trump the big ones like Berlin, Munich, or Cologne. Obviously, I'm all in favour of Münster and you should consider it advertised for special consideration. ";-)