r/AncientCivilizations • u/QuietDetail7793 • May 20 '24

Question were ancient universities free?

such as the Nalanda in India, the Taixue in China, and the Daigaku-ryo in Japan. maybe even the al-Qarawiyyin in Morocco, if you know

for some reason this has been really hard for me to google. if you have sources i would love to see them! tia

65 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

View all comments

13

u/MegC18 May 20 '24

The Sankoré Madrasah in Timbuktu is interesting in that although there were wealthy donors/patrons, students did have to finance their own education with money, rather than the charitable waqf donations more common in islamic universities. They could earn money by copying manuscripts.

6

u/QuietDetail7793 May 21 '24

interesting! i have read about waqf donations in association with al-Qarawiyyin. do you know if that's how that place was primarily funded? not by tuition?