A chain of rapid and unprecedented changes in Hungary’s Higher Education Act have been adopted and implemented recently by the government of Viktor Orbán. Like the quickly written, hurriedly adopted, and thus immature regulations which sometimes even conflict with Hungary’s constitution and EU law, these changes also share the intention of centralising power and establishing supreme control over all levels of education. This article will focus on the new Higher Education Act, while the recently passed regulations concerning the future of primary and secondary education will be discussed in a separate piece of writing.
Radical changes in higher education
In Hungary, numbers of admitted students and the distribution of places among institutions and faculties are decided by the prime minister personally. Usually, students and institutions are informed of both the prospective numbers of places available for qualified applicants and the minimum and maximum level of tuition fees for all majors by mid-December at the latest, far in advance of university application deadlines on 15 February. This year, however, these quotas were published only in late January – just a few weeks before students had to apply for their matura exams (which also function as university entrance exams) and only about three weeks prior to university application deadlines. In addition to the fact that tens of thousands of students had to adjust their plans quickly due to the considerable increase in tuition fees (tuition for some majors was raised by 50-100 percent over 2011 levels), it also became clear that quotas for state-financed places in certain fields had been drastically cut as compared to previous years, while quotas for other fields – such as engineering and architecture – had been significantly increased. Legal studies suffered the most severe cuts – especially law, where no state-financed places and a total of only 100 places were allocated for new entrants, as compared to 800 in 2011. State-financed places in economics, the social sciences and the arts were also cut dramatically. Overall, the number of available state-funded degrees was decreased by 40 percent.
This change in the distribution of state-financed places was at odds with the Higher Education Act in force at the time (which allowed for a maximum change in distribution of 10 percent), and has resulted in exceptionally high entrance requirements for certain fields and extremely low requirements for others. Admission to a Bachelor’s degree programme in architecture, for example, was possible with the minimum of points this year, although programmes in this discipline had previously been among the most competitive.
Viktor Orbán explained this unprecedented favouring of certain career paths by appealing to a need to adjust the labour force to accommodate the new requirements of the market. However, as Dávid Nagy, head of the National Union of Students in Hungary (HÖOK), commented in an interview for Magyar Narancs, this method of arbitrarily forcing one-sided changes upon a complex system cannot lead to the desired positive changes. These hurriedly drafted and adopted regulations left no time for students to adjust their plans, nor did students who had been preparing for social studies for two years suddenly become more interested in science and technology. Not only have tuition fees doubled for many fields in which the number of state-financed places has decreased, the new student loan system was also constructed and published quite late. Furthermore, another staggering new requirement was introduced for new entrants in higher education: the so-called “student contract”.
The student contract affects all students beginning their studies in state-financed status, and is aimed at keeping freshly graduated labour inside Hungary for twice as long as it takes students to earn their degrees, within 20 years of completion. Should they breach the contract, they will have to repay at least 50 percent of the costs of their degrees. Due to the increase in tuition fees, uncertainties regarding the student loan system, and changes in the number of state-financed places, many students (mostly from lower-income families and poorer backgrounds) had no choice but to sign this unprecedented contract, the official text of which was not even available at the time of university application deadlines. And there is no assurance of any governmental assistance whatsoever for these future graduates in finding a job once they complete their studies.
Consequences, civil responseHÖOK and the Ombudsman took the case of the student contract to the Constitutional Court, which eventually declared it unconstitutional in June, referring to a formal error – such changes can only be introduced in laws, not in regulations. Although the parliament passed a law on student contracts already on 12 July, the Court underscored that the contract affects the right of free choice of occupation and that of free mobility of labour within the EU. The European Students’ Union (ESU) is following developments and supports action by the European Council, where the law is already being examined.
In addition to legal action, several civil movements have been organised as a natural reaction to the reforms. In response to the reduction in state-financed courses and the changes in tuition fees, the Student Network (HaHa) and – parallel to it – the Teacher Network were founded. These quickly gained publicity through Facebook, which served as the core channel for organising several protests, some explicitly against the student contracts. One of these protests in February ultimately led to the occupation of one of the lecture halls at the ELTE University Faculty of Law. Major protests were organised by HÖOK as well, starting on 27 October 2011, when a crowd of some 10,000 gathered in front of the Ministry of National Resources to demonstrate against the education reform then only in the planning phase.
Several efforts have been made to highlight the unequal and discriminatory aspects of the new system. The Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA) rejected the cuts in quotas, asking for an increase in funding in economics, the social sciences, and in legal fields. Members of left-wing opposition parties also protested against the new measures, vehemently criticising the introduction of unfair student contracts. Liberal party LMP has explicitly supported protests organised by HaHa, and has encouraged students to turn to the Constitutional Court over the drastic reduction in state-financed places. Despite these actions, however, the government insists on enforcing the new regulations.
Not surprisingly, a large number of students have decided to study abroad where their future career remains open, while the number of domestic applicants has dropped significantly: 110,000 students applied to university in 2012 – 32,000 less than in 2011. 84 percent of them applied for state-financed places, hoping that the contract they will have to sign will ultimately be annulled.
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Zsófia Deák is an advisor at EngAme International Education Consultancy in Budapest.