While we offer many courses in English, some of the mandatory courses in Public Economics will be held in German. Many courses of our program are designed to answer public policy questions that may be unique to the German institutional setting.

It is therefore required that you are proficient in German to be admitted. For further information regarding the German proficiency requirements, please click here.

If the credit points from your previous education (e.g. Bachelor) are not sufficient to meet our admission requirements, there is still a way for you to get into our program. We accept additional credits outside of your original study program if, and only if:

• the additional credits are awarded for courses that are part of an accredited study program.
• all additional courses are finished before the application deadline.

We do not accept any credits that you might get in the future for completing courses in which you are currently enrolled, but have not passed yet.

Freie Universität Berlin provides admission notices and notices of rejection as pdf documents via the application portal for the following procedures after the selection procedures have been completed.

Our Master in Public Economics is to the best of our knowledge the only specialized economics master in the European Union that puts public finance, public economics and public policy at the heart of its curriculum. In the first two years you will learn advanced and modern methods of theoretical and empirical public economics which enable you to evaluate and reflect on public policy as well as give economically sound policy advice to practitioners.

As a public economist, you have to consider the institutional background of any policy measure that you want to discuss. Therefore, our program enables students to get a deeper knowledge of the German tax law and collective labor law by visiting lectures of the Department of Law at Freie Universität Berlin.

In addition, the program aims at providing meaningful insights into the working life of any research-orientated economist. For that matter, our program offers the possibility to gain working experience in a three-month internship or more research experience in a research project of similar length.

You will be able to learn from economist who have been working outside of academia for a long time as well. For instance, in our unique module Knowledge Transfer, you learn from real world economic journalists on how to communicate your profound knowledge with various stakeholders.

So if you are interested in public economic issues, want to broaden your institutional knowledge with a clear focus on Germany and want a Master program that is more applied then your typical economics program, our Master in Public Economics is the right choice for you.

Freie Universität Berlin does not charge any tuition fees except for the semester contributions which, amongst others, include contributions for your public transportation ticket covering the whole city area of Berlin. You can find further information here.

Freie Universität does not offer any scholarships. However, there are other institutions such as the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) or the Deutschlandstipendium which offer external funding opportunities.

In order to get a course from your semester abroad undifferentiatedly recognized, the course must be undifferentiated at the foreign University. There can be no grading of the course. You do not need to register the course as undifferentiated at the Freie Universität. 

The recognition of the course is laid out in the Learning Agreement done before your semester aboad with the Program Coordinator's Office.

The School of Business & Economics offers further information on studying abroad (see the link below). Additional information can be found in Blackboard by searching the following course ID: