7 General University Information

Founded in 1457, Freiburg’s distinguished Albert-Ludwigs-Universität (www.uni-freiburg.de) initially focused solely on the standard Renaissance disciplines of philosophy, law, medicine, and theology. Over the past two centuries, it has developed into a comprehensive institution of higher learning offering the full range of subjects that, in the U.S., constitute a liberal arts education. The university consistently receives a very high ranking in the annual survey of German institutions of higher learning conducted by Focus magazine and recently won recognition in a national “Excellence Initiative” competition. At present, 24,500 students are enrolled at the university. In addition, Freiburg is home to four other notable institutions of higher learning, a Musikhochschule (music conservatory) and a Pädagogische Hochschule (University of Education) as well as the Evangelische and Katholische Hochschule. All in all, Freiburg has about 31,000 students in its total population of 240,000.

Over the years, thousands of U.S. students have benefited from enrolling in Freiburg university classes alongside native German and international students in such disciplines as anthropology, archaeology, art history, botany, business administration, classics, computer science, economics, European ethnology, forest management, geography, German, history, mathematics, music, philosophy, physics, political science, religion, sociology, and zoology. With a few exceptions such as English literature and some business, political science, natural science, and computer science courses, all classes are conducted in German.