The history of education between 1780 and 2000 has shown that the individual ability to learn is much greater than the actual possibility to use all individually gained knowledge in social life. This difference and disharmony between actual competence and its demand in society periodically leads to educational crises, which determine the functional self-development of the institutions of higher education throughout history. This pattern of educational growth since the age of Enlightenment leads to new insight in sociation and social changes.