Universities are core institutions in the whole higher education system in West Germany.
Some of them date back to the medieval age and some others are new ones created in and after the 1960's with the aim of helping increase the number of university places and remedy the regional imbalance in university availability. Whi1e academic institutions place emphasis on basic research, Fachhochschulen stress education related to the application of theories. They offer courses of engineering, economics, social welfare and other various fields. The length of courses in these institutions is usually three years, shorter than that of university courses. Most Fachhochschulen offer courses in two or more fields of study and most of them enroll not more than 3,000 students.