Independent liberal arts universities in Eastern Europe are under attack. Simultaneously, though perhaps for different reasons, two of the region’s best and most independent post-graduate universities are under the serious threat of closure.
In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s long running feud with the Hungarian-born financier and billionaire George Soros has culminated in an attempt to shutter Central European University (CEU), the institute Soros founded in Budapest in 1991. Despite international outrage and large marches in the streets of Budapest, the government has moved ahead with a law that seems designed to close CEU.