26 students looking for a university – A Campus-Community Partnership between path and aberration

Campus-Community Partnerships (CCPs) require higher education institutions to dissolve boundaries and connect with other social actors. CCPs thus represent a contested terrain in which higher education and non-university interests clash. This paper explains the dissolution of boundaries in higher education institutions based on a typology of possible development paths in higher education created by Burawoy. The system features three types: commodified higher education institutions, the higher education regulation model and the public higher education institution. These types are depicted here in the development and negotiation of a complex CCP. The CCP of the “Selbstbestimmt Studieren e.V.” (“self-determined studying”) group outlined in the present case study poses challenges to higher education institutions, reveals the limits of CCP and describes the paths and aberrations of CCP.