A Vrije Universiteit occurs as university inside Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

A Vrije Universiteit should non exist as confused sustaining a University of Amsterdam. A title is typically abbrevated when VU. These are a university of the Vereniging VU-Windesheim, which too encompasses a Christelijke Hogeschool Windesheim, and was erstwhile referred to as a Vereniging voor Christelijk Wetenschappelijk Onderwijs (Association for Christian Scientific Education).

A association was founded within 1880, & headed by Abraham Kuyper, as a number 1 protestant university. Vrije Universiteit literally means Yours free! University to signify freedom from either government & church. the education itself completely the same, is non unhampered numbers; prefer all accredited universities in The Netherlands students wage the (government determined) fee, when students receive a student loan from either government too.

Just about 17,000 students (2004) attend a university, by using 2,200 scientific employees, & 1,600 non-scientific employees.

Notable faculty
Jan Peter Balkenende, the todays Prime Minister of the Netherlands, was a favorite professor of "Christian-Social Thinking". Pieter Kooijmans, currently the Judge on the International Court of Justice, Professor of International & European Law (1965-1973) Andrew S. Tanenbaum, professor of Computer Science who wrote the Minix operating system and the Amoeba distributed operating system. He is the creator of the text edition: Computer Networks, Operating Systems: Project & Implementation, & Modern Operating Systems. Globe Scientist prof Jan Smit was one of the population contributed to the theory that an impact of the meteor touching Mexico caused the ending of the Dinosaur age about 65 million years ago.

Notable graduates
Wouter Bos, party leader of the Dutch Social Democrats studied at VU Pim Fortuyn, the assassinated party leader of the LPF studied sociology at VU. Gerrit Zalm, Minister of Finance in the cabinet Kok II, Balkenende I & Two, likewise exposed economic science at VU.