The University and What Makes It Different

People mostly just call it UW/H for short. It holds a genuinely unique place in German higher education: it was formally state-recognised on 14 July 1982, becoming Germany's first university under private, non-state ownership. So, every private German medical school that followed came after this one specifically opened the door.

The idea behind UW/H reaches back much further than its 1982 recognition, though. It traces to an anthroposophical student group formed in Tübingen in 1945/46, in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. The group's spiritual and intellectual leader, Gerhard Kienle, held that role until his death in June 1983, just months after the university he helped found finally began teaching. Kienle's own view was that both the horror of the war and the knowledge of medical practices that had reduced people to mere scientific objects demanded a genuine alternative, one built around institutions capable of enabling a free intellectual life, with the dignity and individuality of the sick patient placed firmly at the centre of medical care.

Here's a fact most guides skip entirely. Teaching itself began on 30 April 1983, with just 27 students forming the very first Humanmedizin cohort under what became known as the Herdecke-Modell. That original reform curriculum introduced problem-based learning to Germany systematically for the first time, alongside clinical and practical training built around real patients from early in the degree, well before most other German medical schools adopted similar approaches. Business studies and dentistry followed a year later, in 1984, with financial and intellectual backing from institutions including the Bertelsmann Stiftung, Deutsche Bank, the Krupp-Stiftung, and the Zeit-Stiftung.

The curriculum itself has gone through several documented phases of continuous reform since that first 1983 model, culminating in today's Modellstudiengang 2018plus. So, unlike institutions that adopt one reform curriculum and leave it largely unchanged, UW/H has treated its medical teaching as a genuinely ongoing project across four decades. The university today comprises two faculties, Gesundheit, or Health, covering Human Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing Science, and Psychology and Psychotherapy, and Wirtschaft & Gesellschaft, Economics and Society, teaching around 3,000 students across 16 state-accredited degree programmes.

The Witten Campus and Its Setting

UW/H's campus sits at Alfred-Herrhausen-Straße 50 in Witten, a mid-sized city in the Ruhr region of North Rhine-Westphalia. Witten itself is centrally located within the wider Ruhr area, with Bochum reachable in around ten minutes by suburban train, giving students easy access to the region's larger cities while studying in a smaller, more affordable base.

A genuinely distinctive feature of student life at UW/H is how many students study abroad during their degree: more than 80 percent take part in international placements at some point in their training, a notably high figure for a German medical programme. Admission to the university itself doesn't run through Germany's usual Numerus Clausus grade-cutoff system; UW/H describes its places as NC-frei, selected instead through a multi-stage internal process involving a written application and a personal interview covering motivation, social engagement, and resilience, with a formal committee ultimately deciding which applicants receive a place.

Course Structure, Cost, and Practical Details

The Humanmedizin Modellstudiengang at UW/H runs 12.5 semesters, roughly six years and three months, concluding with a Staatsexamen, Germany's state medical examination, the same nationally standardised qualification awarded at public German medical faculties. UW/H offers 84 NC-frei places per semester, with separate application windows for the winter semester, 1 December to 1 February, and the summer semester, 1 June to 15 July, followed by a selection period running from late September to late November or late April to late June, respectively.

The application fee for this selection process is EUR 250, though it can be waived on request for applicants facing genuine financial hardship. Because UW/H is a private university, real tuition applies here, unlike Germany's public medical faculties. The total cost for the full Modellstudiengang is reported consistently at EUR 73,200.

What makes UW/H's fee structure genuinely distinctive is the financing choice it offers. Students can opt into the Umgekehrter Generationenvertrag, literally the "reverse generational contract," a financing model unique among German medical schools: students pay nothing during their studies at all, and only begin repaying a percentage of their income, for a fixed number of years, once they've graduated and started earning. This model has been run since 1995 by the StudierendenGesellschaft, a society founded and still managed by UW/H's own students, funded by the repayments of earlier graduates supporting the current generation. Students who prefer not to defer payment can instead pay a fixed amount immediately, working out to roughly EUR 1,220 a month across the programme's duration.

Living costs in Witten are reported at somewhere between EUR 680 and 850 a month, excluding tuition, putting it among the more affordable cities in North Rhine-Westphalia. Students can also apply for BAföG, Germany's standard state study grant, with a current maximum monthly rate of around EUR 934, alongside scholarships offered both by the StudierendenGesellschaft itself and by external foundations.

Quick Overview

Fee Structure

Why Witten/Herdecke Deserves a Harder Look Than a Simple Ranking Suggests

Germany's Original Private University, Not a Recent Entrant

Most rival pages describing private German medical schools treat them as a recent trend. UW/H received state recognition in 1982, making it the first private university in the entire country, and its Herdecke-Modell introduced problem-based learning to German medical education systematically before most public faculties adopted similar methods. So, when this university describes itself as a pioneer, that claim rests on a specific, dated, independently verifiable first, not marketing language.

A Genuinely Unique Way to Pay for Medical School

Most guides describe private medical school financing purely in terms of loans or upfront fees. UW/H's Umgekehrter Generationenvertrag lets students pay nothing during their studies at all, repaying only later, based on their actual income, through a system literally run by the university's own students since 1995. So, this financing model is a genuine structural innovation, not just a marketing-friendly payment plan.

Honest Assessment

Be upfront about a few real considerations here. As a private university, UW/H's total programme fee of EUR 73,200 is a real cost, even though the reverse generational contract defers when it's paid rather than eliminating it. The NC-frei admission process, while avoiding Germany's grade-cutoff system, still requires passing through a genuinely selective written application and interview process. The whole programme runs in German, so this isn't an option for applicants without strong German language skills.

So, who fits here best? Students drawn to a genuinely original, reform-minded medical curriculum, with a real, four-decade track record of continuous curricular development, fit well here. Students who want the flexibility of paying only after graduation, based on their future income, fit particularly well with the reverse generational contract model. However, applicants who need the zero-tuition structure of Germany's public universities should look elsewhere, since real fees apply here regardless of the repayment method chosen. Still, UW/H's genuine historical firsts and its uniquely flexible financing model are real, well-documented strengths.