Most of the short and medium-term further and higher education courses have been established in the present century. The courses leading to the kandidat degree are traditional courses. Students are entitled to support when they have reached the age of 18, are of Danish nationality and are actively engaged in studies. In the 1990s adult education courses are an expanding field of education offering a range of possibilities. The training courses, which date back to 1960, are taken in AMU centres and vocational schools and are available both to those in work and to the unemployed.
Open education is organised by vocational schools, universities, educational institutions, etc.
In county training centres, courses and tests are offered in general individual subjects on the levels of the folkeskole final examination, hf and grammar school. The object of these courses is to supplement basic schooling or to prepare or improve examination results giving access to further or higher education. There are no examinations in these schools, which decide the intellectual or practical contents of their subjects for themselves. Like free schools and continuation schools, the folk high schools are part of the tradition of popular education going back to N.F.S.Grundtvig. Some of them have promoted ideas and initiatives that have had a profound effect on local cultural and vocational life.