University

Nineteenth-century German educational reformers revivified and gave new meaning to the idea of the university. Karl Wilhelm, baron von Humboldt (1767–1835), minister for education in Prussia, believed that universities should support Wissenschaft, faculty research and discovery in all fields, and should foster Bildung, or cultivation, meaning broad intellectual development and humanistic culture, in students. The new University of Berlin, founded in 1810, embodied Humboldt's vision. The renewed emphasis on research echoed the importance of innovative scholarship in theology, philosophy, law, and medicine by professors at medieval and Renaissance universities. The German research university of the second half of the nineteenth century realized the first goal and was widely copied by North American universities in the twentieth century. Many universities, especially those focusing on undergraduate education, in England, North America, and parts of the world influenced by England, emphasized a version of Bildung and called it liberal education in English and culture générale in French.

Beginning in the nineteenth century, governments assumed a greater role in higher education in Western Europe and the United States. National governments in France, Germany, Italy, and elsewhere founded new state universities and closed or took control of church-sponsored institutions. Governments provided funding for universities, but also brought them under the control of ministries of education and made professors into civil servants. This process continued in the twentieth century, especially in the former Soviet Union (1917–1991). In the United States, state governments founded land-grant colleges in the nineteenth century that often became the largest and most important universities in the state. Although the United States still has a large number of colleges and universities affiliated with religious denominations, the ties between churches and universities have weakened and sometimes been dissolved. Church-affiliated universities have become less insistent that professors be members of the affiliated church, and they increasingly attract students of many faiths or none at all.

Since World War II (1939–1945) the dominant ideas shaping the university are that it should create new learning, teach skills in all fields and especially science and medicine, help the economy create wealth, and support a knowledge-driven society. While not ignored, humanistic research and teaching are less central. The multi-university, as it is sometimes called, offers an astonishing range of institutes, centers, and schools to teach all manner of knowledge, much of it practical. Emblematic of the new conception of the university is the addition of business schools preparing students to be successful in the many areas of national and international commerce and finance.

The idea that universities should provide higher education for a much larger proportion of the population has also won wide support from the public and governments. Hence, beginning in the 1960s governments increased the number and enrollments of universities and eased or broadened admission requirements. In addition, many more older students attended universities than in the past. As a result, the number of university students in Europe, North America, and other parts of the world greatly increased in the last thirty years of the twentieth century. One or two percent, at most, of the university-age population (eighteen through twenty-four) attended European universities in the first half of the twentieth century. By contrast, about half of the university-age population received some university education in the United States at the end of the twentieth century. In Europe as well, an increasing number of young people are attending university. Also, the European Union is slowly moving toward cooperation between universities in different countries and greater mobility of professors and students.