A Short History of German Universities *
Some German universities are very old. Empire Karl IV created the first German university in 1348 in Prag. Prag now is not in Germany but in Czech. The second oldest German university is in Vienna (1365), which is also now not in Germany. The oldest German university is Heidelberg University (1386). Some other universities have already had their celebrations commemorating 500 years, for examples, Leipzig University (1409) and Rostock University (1419). There are also some very new universities, over 20 of them are opened since the beginning of 1960.
The republic Germany now has universities, technical universities, special universities, and many different educational institutes such as music universities and educational academies. The education policy opened the universities for broad segments of the populations. Some examples: in 1952/1953 winter semester only 4% of freshmen were from working families, now it is around 19%. In 1952, only 1/5 students were women. In 1994/1995 winter semester, it was low 40% in formal east Germany and over 45% in formal west Germany. In 1994 around 135000 foreign students studied in German universities.
*: Translated from German by me, p. 40. German for Reading Knowledge, 4th ed., Hubert Jannach and Richard Alan Korb. Heinle & Heinle Publishers, Boston, 1998
