Ursula Steinkemper

Private universities have hardly received any jurisprudential attention so far, although a number of new ones have been founded in recent years. These private academic universities have been and continue to be supported by the state - in some cases with considerable financial resources - while the state universities have had to accept funding cuts. Ursula Steinkemper examines this problem against the background of the constitutional anchoring of the private university. The author first examines the question of why the higher education system in Germany is shaped by the state's role in higher education. The discussion that has arisen in recent years about the advantages and disadvantages of private universities is related to the general discussion about privatisation. In this context, the transfer of the concept of responsibility developed in administrative law serves to theoretically underpin the emerging dual university system. In addition to the high level of state responsibility for higher education, duality is expressed above all in the constitutional anchoring of the private university within the framework of the guarantee of academic freedom in Article 5 (3) of the Basic Law, against which the state-law provisions on state recognition in particular are to be measured. Against this background, the second part of the thesis examines state funding of private universities. Although the state, similar to public schools, has a general obligation under objective law to provide support, a private university's right to financial support does not follow from this. Rather, the legislator has leeway in assessing the type of support. The author presents and examines various concepts of direct and indirect funding. Here, too, the state measures are limited by the constitutional position of the private university by way of a fundamental rights perspective.