Free university

This article is about community-run educational programming. For education at no personal cost, see free education.

A free university is an organization offering uncredited, public classes without restrictions to who can teach or learn. They differ in structure. In 1980 in the United States, about half were associated with a traditional university, about a third were independent, and the remainder were associated with a community group. About half at that time operated without fees. Starting with University of California, Berkeley's Free Speech Movement in 1964, hundreds of free universities sprouted within university communities throughout the 1960s as organizations for underground activism and political education. They were also known as experimental colleges, open education exchanges, and communiversities. After 1960s student activism subsided, free universities moved their programming off-campus and continued to exist as a venue for lifelong learning. After a slight lull in the early 1970s, enrollment increased mid-decade as part of an adult education wave.

Free University Moscow

After repressions at Higher School of Economics several professors Gasan Gusejnov, Elena Lukyanova, Kirill Martynov decided to organise a new university. They said "We, professors and teachers of different universities, are joining forces to work with students in a new way. In spring 2020 we have all lived through the greatest crisis in the sphere of education in decades."

See also

• Free University of New York
• Antiuniversity of London
• Midpeninsula Free University

Bibliography

• Draves, Bill (1980). The Free University: A Model for Lifelong Learning. New York: Association Press. ISBN 978-0-695-81443-4.

Further reading

• Fleischer-Black, Matt (2015). "Free Universities". In Misiroglu, Gina (ed.). American Countercultures: An Encyclopedia of Nonconformists, Alternative Lifestyles, and Radical Ideas in U.S. History: An Encyclopedia of Nonconformists, Alternative Lifestyles, and Radical Ideas in U.S. History. Routledge. pp. 285–287. ISBN 978-1-317-47729-7.
• Hamilton, Neil A. (1997). "Free University". The ABC-CLIO Companion to the 1960s Counterculture in America. ABC-CLIO. p. 109–. ISBN 978-0-87436-858-1.
• Litkowski, Thomas (1983). Free Universities and Learning Referral Centers, 1981. National Center for Education Statistics.
• Miller, Ron (2002). Free Schools, Free People: Education and Democracy After the 1960s. Albany: State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-7914-5419-3. OCLC 878586179.
• Neumann, Richard (2003). Sixties Legacy: A History of the Public Alternative Schools Movement, 1967–2001. New York: Peter Lang. ISBN 978-0-8204-6354-4. OCLC 878586437 – via EBSCOhost.
• Schwartz, Robert (1994). "Free University". In Bodenhamer, David J.; Barrows, Robert G. (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Indianapolis. Indiana University Press. p. 601. ISBN 0-253-11249-4.
• Thompsett, Fern (2016). "Learning by Doing by Learning: Reflections on Scholar-activism with the Brisbane Free University" (PDF). Australian Universities' Review. 58 (2): 59–66.