The RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau and its Distance and Independent Studies Center (DISC) have been honoured as “Top Fernstudienanbieter 2023” (“Top Distance Studies Provider 2023”) by the online platform FernstudiumCheck and as “Sehr guter Anbieter 2023” (“Excellent Provider 2023”) by the online platform Fernstudium Direkt. By receiving these awards, the university in Kaiserslautern continues a successful tradition, but for the first time as the newly formed RPTU.

Once again, RPTU has received the “Top Distance Studies Provider” award by FernstudiumCheck and the “Excellent Provider” FSD-seal by Fernstudium Direkt. The two comparison portals, with together more than six million page views last year, are the most influential comparison portals in the Distance Learning sector. Every year they hand out their awards based on experiences and reviews of distance students. Besides the number of posted reviews during the previous year, the quality of these reviews determines which provider will be awarded. An additional factor on FernstudiumCheck is the recommendation rate. RPTU shines with a recommendation rate of 91 % and a rating of 4.2 out of 5 stars on both comparison portals and therefore ranked fifth in the category “Top Fernstudienanbieter 2023” (“Most popular Distance Studies Provider”) and was therefore honoured as “Top Distance Studies Provider 2023” by FernstudiumCheck.

At the moment RPTU offers 27 further education, part-time distance learning Master’s and Certificate programmes, with three new programmes currently in development, in the fields of social studies, economics, law, natural sciences and engineering. Distance students accounted for close to a third of the student body on RPTU’s Kaiserslautern campus in the winter semester 2022/2023.

More than 50 employees at the Distance and Independent Studies Center, RPTU’s central distance learning facility, alone, as well as additional parties from the university’s faculties and administration and external cooperation partners work on the success of the distance learning programmes. “We are elated to, once again, receive both awards and all thanks to the exceptional commitment of all those involved.”, said DISC’s managing director, Dr. Nadine Bondorf. “As a public university we stand for academic quality but at the same time we work under more difficult conditions compared to private providers in the distance learning sector, which makes it even more gratifying that, again, we managed to convince students of our range of programmes this year.”

The excellent range of distance learning programmes at RPTU has long been a tradition. For almost the past ten years in a row the university in Kaiserslautern has received awards from FernstudiumCheck. First rank as “Beliebtester Fernstudienanbieter” (“Most popular Distance Studies Provider”) was last achieved in 2018. In 2021 RPTU was awarded the seal of approval by Fernstudium Direkt for the first time. Since then, RPTU has received this seal for the third year in succession. “We are proud to consistently and successfully position us as a university of life-long learning.”, said RPTU’s vice president for teaching in Kaiserslautern, Dr. Stefan Löhrke. “The distance learning segment will also play a greater role in the merging process of the two locations in Kaiserslautern and Landau in the near future. The connection to the Landau campus brings additional gain in this area which we will address together as RPTU. We are looking forward to continuing the long-standing tradition with these new perspectives.”