Universities in the Federal Republic of Germany 1949-2001

The study ‘Vocational Schools and universities in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) 1949-2001’ consists of two parts: I: vocational schools; II: universities. In Gesis´s online database HISTAT the data is available in two separated data sets, one for vocational schools and one for universities.
The study was published as volume VIII of the data handbook on German educational history, a collaborative research project supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgesellschaft (DFG) which documents German educational statistics of the last 200 years.

The data handbook starts with a part in text form on the history of institutions and the functions of these institutions. In the text part there are also nine appendices explaining the methodological procedure. The other part of the study contains data. 535 tables based on this data are available on HISTAT. A selection of tables and numerous graphs illustrate the text part. The data handbook can be used by those who work with the data set from HISTAT and who want further information on previous decisions made on the construction of the data set. The table of contents of the hand book and the register of tables are available here as PDF files.
The data tables on universities refer mainly to students of different university types as defined in the sources. Regarding the basic classification of university types we did some standardization and slightly summarized the classifications from the original source.

Data tables in HISTAT (topic education):

Universities by university types:
1. Universities [in contrast to the classification in the sources; without technical universities]
2. Technical universities [separated from universities]
3. General universities
4. Theological universities [philosophical theological and church universities]
5. Pedagogical universities
6. Universities of Art and Music
[Sum of 1 to six: “scientific universities”]
7. Universities of applied science (incl. universities of applied science of administration)
8. Universities of applied science of administration
9. Universities of applied science without universities of applied science of administration

The data available on HISTAT was originally saved as an Access data base. In few cases if there were complications with the sources, supplementary data was collected and sometimes estimated. These adjustments are included in the concerning tables of the book but not in the Access data base; it is the case for the tables of students by institutions. Special attention is necessary for analyzing the number of teacher education students at pedagogical schools between 1950 and 1966. Only from 1967 on pedagogical universities are included in the official statistics on universities. The time series from the Access data base as it is also available on HISTAT do not include students at pedagogical universities for the period before 1967. These numbers can be found separately in the book (see appendix 5).