CEU to close its door for good in Budapest
On Thursday, the CEU informed its former students that the university council will initiate the revocation of the Central European University’s licence. Simultaneously, research institutes in Budapest will remain operational, and non-degree courses will be retained.
According to Népszava, the university council indicated in a letter to former students on Thursday that it would begin the process of revoking the institution’s licence. The Hungarian Academy Staff Forum wrote in a Facebook post, that this decision was justified by the fact that CEU has not admitted students to its Hungarian-accredited programmes for a long time, and therefore cannot operate as a university in the capital any longer.
“CEU has not accepted students into its Hungarian-accredited degree programmes for several years, and the last students enrolled in such programmes will graduate in July 2024. Therefore, CEU does not meet the conditions of a university in Budapest, and as such, our Board of Trustees has decided to initiate the closing of our Hungarian university entity, Közép-európai Egyetem, at the end of the academic year,” the post on social media stated. They also mentioned that the Orbán government’s efforts to expel the university from Budapest have succeeded, as CEU will cease its higher education activities in Hungary.
However, the research institutes in Budapest will remain, and other non-degree programmes will also be maintained. Népszava adds that the decision is understandable since neither American nor Hungarian education has been provided in Budapest for years, making it unreasonable to maintain an institution that does not offer such education from an institutional standpoint.
CEU decided to move most of its courses to Vienna
The university council had prepared a development plan for the future of CEU, proposing the permanent departure of the institution. Although a petition was launched against this move, it was unsuccessful. The accreditation of the US course was withdrawn earlier from the Budapest site, and now the Hungarian course accreditation is also being withdrawn.
The university was targeted by the Orbán government at the beginning of 2017, for political reasons, as part of the campaign against George Soros, with the amendment of the Higher Education Act. This amendment stipulated that a foreign higher education institution operating in Hungary must also provide education in its home country.
Although the institution signed a cooperation agreement with Bard College to start a course at the US-based institution of higher education in New York State, the Orbán government refused to recognise this. As a result, CEU decided to move its US-accredited courses from Budapest to Vienna.
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Getting rid of CEU is considered a success. Well done. Socialist indoctrination or ender studies do not belong in Hungarian Universities.
Good riddance. That’s not an educational institution by any definition but a factory of anti-Hungarian and anti-Western activists.
That was inevitable. Education like the one provided by CEU requires freedom from political influence. In Orbánistan, an illiberal regime run by a nepotistic autocrat surrounded by a court of yesmen and oligarchs, that is simply impossible. Beside the fact that, as one former minister of Orbánistan once declared, Hungary does not need educated youth.
That is what the regime wants: young people should emigrate and the aged and the ignorants should be rewarded instead.
Hungary is doomed.
Indoctrination & political ideology isn’t education. Since when inclusiveness & censorship become more important than merit & freedom of speech? These gender, race, affirmative action ideologies decaying western higher education system. CEU is closed for good.
Yo-yo = igen-igen or more from Orbanistan. Too late to turn back the clock. Sorry Peter you jumped ship rather late,