Private Hochschulen gibt es besonders häufig in Großstädten wie Berlin. Mehr als die Hälfte der Hochschulstandorte befinden sich in Städten mit mehr als einer halben Million Einwohnern. | Foto: Adobe StockAround one in eight students in Germany was enrolled at a private university in the winter semester 2023/24. The private IU International University is now the largest university in Germany. With 116,000 students, almost as many people are enrolled there as at the two largest state universities combined. However, the majority of private universities have fewer than 2,500 students. This is shown by the update of a ‘DatenCHECK’ (in German) on the profiles of state, church and private universities
Compared to state universities, non-state and, in particular, private universities continue to experience a boom in Germany. In the past winter semester 2023/24, 13 per cent of all students (372,887 people) were enrolled at a private institution. This corresponds to an increase of one percentage point compared to the previous year.
Of the 423 universities in Germany (as of December 2024), 26 per cent are private, 65 per cent are state-run and 9 per cent are church-run. Compared to the previous year, the total number of universities listed in the HRK Higher Education Compass has decreased slightly by four.
While some state universities and many of the church universities can look back on a long history, 71 of the 110 private universities currently listed in the HRK Higher Education Compass were only founded in the new millennium.
State and private universities are represented in all federal states. Church universities, on the other hand, can only be found in ten federal states, mainly in the south-west of the republic. Church and state universities can be found in cities with different populations. There is a strong concentration of private universities in large cities. More than half of the universities are in cities with more than half a million inhabitants.
Significant differences can also be seen in the number of students per university. Three quarters of private universities have student numbers of up to 2,500 students. One exception is the IU International University with more than 116,000 (distance learning) students throughout Germany in the winter semester 2023/24. The largest state universities include the FernUniversität in Hagen, the Technical University of Munich and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich with 63,000, 54,000 and 52,000 students respectively. The largest church-run institution is the Catholic University of North Rhine-Westphalia with more than 5,000 students.