Hungarians at Harvard

Surprisingly, many Hungarians taught or studied at perhaps the most famous university in the world, Harvard. Professor of Economics János Kornai has been teaching at the oldest higher education institution in the United States for several decades, while Gusztáv Nagy, a young advisor to the Constitutional Court, received his Master’s degree in law this year.

Harvard University is the oldest institution of higher education in the United States, in Cambridge. The university was named in 1639 after the theologian John Harvard, who offered half of his estates, four hundred books, and eight hundred pounds to set up a new college. 

Harvard University is a member of the Ivy Leauge, established in 1954, which brings together eight universities (Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Princeton, Pennsylvania, Harvard, and Yale) and was originally created for sports collaboration between East Coast universities. As they say, being a member of the Leauge means much more than that: those who come from these universities represent America’s elite. In other words, Harvard is a stronghold of elite education.

From the more than four hundred former students there are presidents (John F. Kennedy, George W. Bush, Barack Obama), businessmen (Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg), writers, and artists (T.S. Eliot, Matt Damon).

An integral part of the “American dream” is a high level of higher education. In addition to Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Princeton are also highly prestigious, as is the Technical University of Massachusetts (MIT) or the California University of Technology (Caltech). According to QS TopUniversities 2020 rankings, Harvard provides the best business training in the world. It is incredibly difficult to get into an MBA at Harvard Business School, with up to a tenth of the entrants succeeding. Getting into Harvard University’s undergraduate degree is perhaps even tougher. Every twentieth candidate can make it.

Index selected Hungarian teachers and students from the history of Harvard. The most well-known Hungarian lecturer at Harvard was János Kornai, who was a guest professor in 1984-85, and in 1986, he was permanently appointed professor of economics. He has been a professor emeritus at Harvard University since 2002. He based his reputation on his work A hiány (The Deficit) in 1980. The concept of a soft budget constraint is also associated with his name. In his book The Power of Thought, Kornai describes the complicated process at the end of which a guest can become a Harvard professor.