Subsisting Within Public Universities: Universities of the Third Age in Germany

This chapter provides an overview of Universities of the Third AgeThird age (U3As) in Germany with respect to their history, institutional set-up, and participants. The situation in Germany is characterised by the integration of U3As into public universities. In contrast to many other countries, U3As in Germany are, in most cases, not independent institutions, but part of public universities and predominantly financed by the universities’ budgets and participation fees. Thus, in the German federal system U3As are not controlled by the individual states’ Ministries of Education, but by their Ministries of Science. These structures lead, on the one hand, to a high academic level of the courses offered by German U3As and, on the other hand, to a marginalisation of the U3As in many universities, since they usually do not train young researchers and are not financed by the state as opposed to the degree programmes. However, due to these structures U3As can actually profit from the infrastructure provided by the universities and from their close proximity to research. However, while the structures may be very specific to the German landscape of U3As, didactical concepts popular at German U3As are only partly based on these institutional structures and are also successful in other countries with other organisational framings. Taking into account the continuously increasing number of people in their post-retirement phase of life, increasing participation rates of older adults in adult education, and a higher level of formal education among the coming generations of senior citizens, a growing number of U3A students are to be anticipated. More professionalised organisational structures with their own budget and staff could be one future model able to tackle these challenges, with such structures already in place in a small number of universities.