Higher education funding systems can be quite complex in their design; sometimes even to such an extent that it is hard to identify the sources and recipients of funding. Following an in-depth analysis of six European higher education funding systems in 2007/2008, an update for Germany has been carried out recently. These fresh research findings were presented at the EUROSTUDENT Talks on June 12 by Christoph Gwosć from The German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW). One of the aims of the research was to make the partially ‘invisible’ state funding observable. In doing so, the analysis focused not only on the interplay of public and private funding, but also on different types and recipients of public support. The data also allowed for a time comparison between two decades. Finally, the empirical findings were evaluated against the background of various objectives that can be set for higher education funding systems.