Language skills are central to refugee integration and the availability of language courses could thus be a limiting factor. We explore how the most important provider of language courses in Germany, adult education centers (VHS), adapted their course supply to the refugee wave of 2015/2016. Our results highlight two channels through which the local environment can affect opportunities for participation in adult learning: First, exploiting the quasi-random allocation of refugees to counties, we causally estimate by how much VHS scaled up their German language course (DAF) supply as a reaction. Moreover, we show that DAF courses were created almost exclusively at the cost of other courses, that is, by crowding out. Second, we uncover heterogeneities in scaling success. VHS with more prior DAF course experience and larger VHS adapted better, which shows the relevance of initial conditions in course offers.

语言技能是难民融入的核心，因此语言课程的可用性可能是一个限制因素。我们探讨了德国最重要的语言课程提供者成人教育中心 (VHS) 如何调整其课程供应以适应 2015/2016 年的难民潮。我们的研究结果强调了当地环境可以影响参与成人学习机会的两个渠道：首先，利用难民准随机分配到县，我们根据 VHS 扩大其德语课程 (DAF) 供应量的数量进行因果估计一个反应。此外，我们表明 DAF 课程的创建几乎完全是以其他课程为代价的，即通过排挤。其次，我们发现了规模化成功的异质性。具有更多先前 DAF 课程经验的 VHS 和更大的 VHS 适应更好，