The system of higher education in Germany unites 326 universities, most of which are state owned. Private universities that produce trained in Germany, must necessarily have a state license to teach.
The basis of the system of education in Germany consists of 78 universities (Universitaet) and similar institutions.
In Germany there are three types of universities
- This is a classic “old” universities with a rich history and tradition going back to the Middle Ages: the Heidelberg University, the University of Freiburg, Tübingen and several other cities. Initially they comprised only philosophical, medical and theological faculties, but with time to add other areas of training, although these faculties still remain major.
- The second type of institutions that provide training in Germany – are universities that received the status of technical and other specialized institutions. For example, the Higher Technical School in Hanover, in 1968, received the status of a technical university, and then, in 1978, was transformed into a university. This group includes the technical university (Technische Universitaeten) and related to the status of the higher technical schools (Technische Hochschulen) in Aachen and Darmstadt. The boundary between the technical universities and universities often simply conventional: so, the University of Rostock has a technical department, and, for example, at the Technical University of Karol-Wilhelmina in Braunschweig has branches of humanities and social sciences, where you need to write a speech.
- The third type of German universities – universities that have arisen in the past 30-40 years at the peak of the rapid development of higher education in Germany. This is the Ruhr-University in Bochum Universities of Konstanz, Regensburg, Bielefeld, other new universities and private colleges. All of them (except, perhaps, of the University of Bochum) can not compete with the classic lines of the diversity training. Instead, they conducted experiments on the introduction of modern methods of teaching, they often have campuses that are not generally characteristic of the German universities.
Although the six smaller private schools enrolled only 0.1% of the total number of university students, all of them are well recognized by the state and are listed in their respective fields. The special features include private universities tuition fees are currently 1,500 to 4,000 Euro per semester, and often taught in English, and more stringent admissions criteria, the maximum duration of study concentrated.
The combined high schools is in Duisburg, Essen, Wuppertal, Siegen, Paderborn and Kassel
These institutions are integrated courses for joint training, and research profiles. Thus, the combined high schools offer an “all in one” of universities and special schools. For example, in North Rhine-Westphalia, where most of this type of education, adopted the so-called Y-model: at a basic stage of education (2 semesters), students do the same for all program offices, and at the stage of specialization, they are divided into two streams , one of which focuses on short-term program (6 semesters), the other – in full (8 semesters). Learning how to brief and full-cycle completed delivery of final exams and thesis defense. Short cycle graduates assigned diploma I, the full cycle – Diploma II, equivalent university degree.
Besides the universities, training in Germany there are non-university higher education institutions. They include professional high schools (Fachhochschulen). Fachhochschulen emerged on the basis of engineering schools, analogues of our professional schools. In 1976, they were included in the system of higher education. Gradually, their level grew: in addition to the training they have to work on the applied research, requirements for faculty increased. At present, the Fachhochschulen is trained around a quarter of all students. Universities train specialists in this type of 120 profiles of engineers, economists, designers and professionals in other fields. Most special schools in Germany are small – between one and five thousand students.