The way was now open for a belated return to university level education. Herta Leistner, by now aged 37, moved to Tübingen. A conventional choice would have been to study for a degree in Theology. Leistner chose social pedagogy instead. "Learning Latin and Greek was not really my thing. I thought my value was more as a practitioner than as a theoretician". That would make her a good fit for the Bad Boll where she took a managerial post as director of studies in 1974. Her five years as a student at Tübingen came in the wake of the "events" of May 1968 and coincided with a number of rapid societal changes, often with students taking the lead. The period also marked a new awakening for the to which, as she later told an interviewer, Leistner owed a great deal. It was also at Tübingen that Leistner had her first love affair with another woman. Even after the romance ended and her lover married someone else, the two women would remain on friendly terms.