R. Deem & H. Eggins (Eds.), The University as a Critical Institution?, 111–133. © 2017 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved. DANIEL KONTOWSKI AND DAVID KRETZ 7. LIBERAL EDUCATION UNDER FINANCIAL PRESSURE The Case of Private German Universities INTRODUCTION This article discusses the question of how financial pressure influenced the liberal education mission of private, German liberal education institutions. European universities are predominantly offering disciplinary and professional study paths. Germany, the largest higher education system in Europe, is the paradigm case. It has developed strong disciplinary traditions (often said to be following the Humboldtian model), comprehensive state control and up now very recently limited international orientation. Yet across Europe, there has also begun a quiet, small (re-)emergence of more general education oriented undergraduate curricula over the last three decades. Rooted in ancient and medieval traditions of “artes liberales”, and their modern reinterpretation as “liberal (arts) education” (Kimball, 1995; Rothblatt, 2003), more than 70 interdisciplinary programs operate currently in diverse curricular and organizational settings (Godwin & Altbach, 2016; van der Wende, 2011). 1 These European liberal education initiatives often possess a range of features that make them welcome additions to higher education landscapes. Small size and flexibility often make such institutions ideal incubators for educational experimentation (Grant & Riesman, 1978), and they can be a valuable seed of diversification of higher education systems (Huisman & Vught, 2009). The general non-vocational mission shows a healthy distance from the neo-liberal marketization of higher learning, and potentially moves towards an alternative to the structured higher education system that tends to reproduce social injustices (Nussbaum, 1998, 2012). Social integration of academic learning with campus-based communities promotes the self-organization of students and the democratization of university bureaucracies in terms of curriculum and pedagogy, the egalitarian nature of learning as evidenced in the weakening of the student-teacher dichotomy and disciplinary boundaries, and through small-scale, discussion-based seminars within interdisciplinary integrated curricula all provide a healthy balance to dominant models. But those few privates who choose the path of liberal arts are still more fragile than their public counterparts. 2 With little to no state-funding, nor tax-enhanced cultures of private philanthropy, many innovative private institutions across Europe often had to rely on tuition, thus risking elitist exclusivity, or else went bankrupt