ROMANIAN PRIVATE HIGHER EDUCATION: A DESCRIPTIVE REPORT
Robert Reisz
(the report was prepared in 2001 at the request of the Teleki Foundation, Budapest, Hungary)

The goal of this report is to snapshot statistically and in a general descriptive manner the current state of private higher education in Romania. A brief international comparison will also be made to be able to correctly set the Romanian case in the regional higher education scene of the Central and East European countries. During the report the Transylvanian case will be singled out statistically where it is possible and will represent a focus of my comments.

Let me start with a series of statements, representing the major findings of the research in the area, related to the current state of the sector. All these statements will be detailed in the following sections.

First of all, Romanian private higher education has reached stability. As is mostly known, Romanian private higher education has appeared in a legislative vacuum in 1990, has passed a period of eruptive development and expansion, in nevertheless rather un-academic conditions, and led to some resentment from the authorities and the public sector. A new step was represented by the introduction of accreditation procedures. Currently, a relatively large number of institutions (68 in 2000/2001) have managed to comply with the rules of this law reaching a state of normality, regarding to Romanian standards, in what academic and administrative conditions and procedures are concerned. Nowadays private higher education does not differ relevantly from public higher education in new institutions.

The public sector has also entered the private market. The first introduction of study fees in the public sector was not accepted by most of the universities. Nevertheless, in a few years, after a second attempt from the Ministry of Education fee-paying students have become a major income source in almost all public higher education institutions. In disciplines with high market value, as economical sciences, business studies and law, disciplines that represent most of the private sector as well, the number of paying students largely surpass the number of the non-paying ones in the public sector. The Romanian higher education scene that used to be up to 1990 completely free of charge has currently over half of its students paying study fees (both public and private). The fees paid in the public sector do not relevantly differ from those paid in the private one.

The private sector has gained in weight and respectability. Both previous statements lead to the reduction in the difference between sectors. Adding up the fact that private higher education has currently as much as 44% of the students of the public sector, a clear gain in position of the private universities results. Graduates of private universities are already on the labor market since five years and have proven to be able stand up to their position next to those of the public institutions.

In my first study of the private sector (Reisz, 1992) I found a smaller interest in private higher education in Transylvania than the rest of the country. This has also changed in the meantime. Private higher education is currently better spread institutionally over the regions of the country. Nevertheless, Bucharest is the major center of private higher education more than in the case of the public sector.

Let me end this introduction with a tabular comparing the case of Romanian private higher education with the other Central and East European countries. The tables have been prepared by CEPES UNESCO are available from the web page www.cepes.ro. Sources of the individual data are listed in the web page.
Numbers of institutions and teaching staff (1999 or the latest year available)


Student Enrollment (1999 or the latest year available)

A short historical sketch.

Private higher education has emerged in Romania as a highly surprising, new development after the liberalization of social, political and economic life following the December 1989 revolution. I have comprehensively described the background conditions that enabled these events as well as the formal and actual functioning of private higher education institutions in previous studies (Reisz, 1992, 1993a). The expansion of Romanian higher education starting in 1990 was an impressive, steep process conditioned by the historical development of the system throughout the post-war period (Reisz, 1993b). The creation of a private higher education sector was even labeled as an "explosive" process (Setenyi, 1992) in an international comparison. The framework for the development of private higher education was most evidently highlighted by the numerical underdevelopment of the whole higher education sector and the political determination of its disciplinary structure. In 1989 Romania had the second least number of students at 10.000 inhabitants in a European comparative view (Ladanyi, 1991) and a unbalanced disciplinary structure with 69% of all students in engineering and agricultural sciences (I.S.E., 1993). The latter condition was determined by the subordination of the educational system to the planned economy as a quasi-industrial production of the needed intellectual proletariat.

If the rationales for the existence of private alternatives in higher education are found to be the offering of more, different and better education (Geiger, 1986), in the Romanian case the first two of the enumeration were most evident to be found. While the desire for more was very easy to locate in the high competition at admission examinations throughout the system, the need for different was first located in the disciplinary sectors of private higher education, an almost mirror image to the offer of public institutions. As the expansion of the state system took off to gain the disciplinary equilibrium and to use the existing market need for certain degree programs, this characteristic almost expired.

In the beginning of the development process of the private higher education scene in Romania two distinct patterns for the creation of such institutions could be traced. We can consider on the one hand institutions created as commercial enterprises and on the other hand as non-profit organizations. The first group initially consisted of so-called "small enterprises" created on the basis of the "Decree-Law no.54/1990 concerning the organization and progress of some activities based on free initiative" adopted by the Council of the National Salvation Front, later to become limited liability enterprises according to Law no.31/1990. The second group included those higher education institutions owned by non-profit organizations or created as non-profit organizations, both according to Law no.452 (21)/1924. Currently all private higher education institutions have passed into the second group to conform to the requirements of the accreditation law.

As good as all private higher education institutions have been created by academics or groups of academics having mainly two aims, the offering of education opportunities to a large number of applicants not admitted to public higher education because of the very restrictive numerus clausus as well as the creation of an alternative income possibility for academics in a society with a high inflation rate and a generally low income structure for all public employees. The existence of an unsatisfied market demand for higher education was most evident in the last years of the communist regime. The most radical situation was at those disciplines that have been cut or even totally disappeared during the 1974 restructuring of the higher education system. These were mainly the social sciences, the humanities and law. Next to these, demand was raising for all economic sciences and specially business studies along with the liberalization of the economic life. Public higher education was also active in the trial to satisfy the existing demands, but both academic and administrative reasons have kept it from being able to act as fast as the private institutions did. As such, in the public sector the percentage of those studying in technical and agricultural faculties was for the following years still more than a half (62.6% in 1990/91, 57.4% in 1991/92, 50.0% in 1992/93, it reached 37.6% in 1997/98) the trend being decreasing. To compare, of the 187 private faculties existing in the 1991/92 academic year, 51 were of economical sciences and business studies, 43 of humanities and social sciences while only 19 of technical and 7 of agricultural sciences. In the same year 80.9% of the students from the private sector studied economy, law, humanities and social sciences while a comparable percentage from the public sector, including economy, law, arts and sciences, was still only 31.5%.

It should also be noted that these figures could simply result of the need of private higher education to orient its disciplinary structure towards programs with lower level of equipment costs. Still, the non-completion of study places for technical and agricultural programs of public universities justifies the explanation of the disciplinary structure as resulted from market-like processes, as well.

The functioning of private higher education institutions was up to 1995 mostly conditioned by their non-recognition by state authorities. Although all institutions offering education in the non-profit sector where granted an approval by the Ministry of Education, they where not recognized as being a form of higher education. As such a high uncertainty on the fate of their graduates existed in as much as the recognition of diplomas and degrees was concerned. This led first of all to a lower prestige than the institutions of the state sector had, also reinforced by the differences in facilities, international recognition and entrance standards.

The students of the private sector were reportedly of higher age average than those of the state sector. This first of all because they were usually those that have sought admission to public higher education (even repeatedly) and have not succeeded. On the other hand, the looser scheduling of private higher education universities, sometimes mainly evening and weekend courses, that was also dew to the space floor conditions offered audition possibilities to atypical students. One of the main criticisms on the private sector refers to the low scientific standards of education determined mainly by the low standard of their students. Still the overall increase in the age participation rate dew to the emergence of private higher education has to be generally viewed as a positive development even if the average aptness of the student population might decrease to some extent. Predictably the same debate on academic standards as during the massification period of Western higher education has also appeared in Romanian academic circles as well as in the mass media in the early 90'. Its determinants were both the expansion of public higher education as well as the emergence of the private sector.

The teaching staff of private universities was to a large extent formed by professors primarily employed in the public sector. The non-recognition of private higher education has in those years prevented most professors to accept full time employment at these institutions, as their positions in public higher education were those upon which their prestige and as such even their 'market value' relied. Mostly professors with a high prestige offered the same courses as in the public institutions at sometimes more than one of the private ones. No overall statistics on the teaching staff existed, still the number of young teaching assistants could be estimated as unusually low compared to the public sector. The number of teachers not coming from public higher education was also low and consisted mainly of researchers from the institutes of the Academy of Sciences as well as some foreign language and sports teachers from secondary education. These have mostly changed dew to the accreditation law. As we will see the law sets clear percentages for the teaching staff that should be primarily employed in the institution seeking accreditation. This has led to the larger number of young academics that are now employed in the private sector than in the public one as well as to migration from public to private higher education.

Private higher education institutions rarely organized research activities, but claimed that education does benefit of the research activities of their professors, usually conducted in other administrative frameworks.

The curriculum of private higher education institutions could and still can be considered as widely similar to that of the public sector, only a smaller proportion of optional and facultative courses being reported. No structural differences in the organization of study programs exist. All this can be sensed throughout the system even if no external interference in curriculum planning of private higher education institutions took place.

The financial support of private higher education institutions was from the beginning on and currently still is as good as 100% from study fees. The evolution of the fees has decreased in real terms. If in 1990/91 these where up to 7-8 medium monthly salaries, they reached in 1992/93 1-4 medium monthly salaries, remaining in this range. It should be stated that the variance of the study fees has most evidently grown; a certain prestige determined market value of the private higher education institutions emerging. A small number of institutions have succeeded in obtaining private donations, no funds from the state budget for higher education and no research funds whatsoever reaching the private sector. The amount of incomes not resulting from study fees can be considered as not relevant on the level of the total system.

The most evident problem of private higher education institutions was the securing of appropriate teaching and administrative space floor. As good as no spaces in their own property could be reported in 1992, at the date of my first study on the sector (Reisz, 1992). This has currently changed quite remarkably as most private universities following the requirements of the accreditation law, have sought to purchase, lend on long term basis or construct real estate for education purposes. The real estate basis of these institutions could still hardly be compared to that of public universities in 1997 but had already reached a certain state of normality in the educational process, most un-appropriate settings used in the previous years having been abandoned. Still no private higher education institution could report the existence of student lodgings, leisure facilities or any of the similar (Reisz, 1997). In the meantime even greater improvements can be mentioned, including the creation of lodgings, small campuses, etc.

It is interesting to note that some developments first appearing in the private sector that have subsequently been introduced in the public sector as well. In 1992 I have reported the existence of short-term programs within most of the private higher education institutions, a pattern unusual at that date in public universities. In the meantime almost all public universities have also diversified their offer to include different alternative types of programs. Another, similar development is the case of entrance examinations. Public universities had in the past only written knowledge examinations, while private ones employed written knowledge or ability examinations, multiple answer tests, or more, different examinations with a weighted average of the marks. Currently, no differences in the overall system can be sensed. Public universities have changed their admission procedures to such an extent that the patterns previously encountered only in the private sector currently span over the whole national system no evident correlation to the public/private status existing.

The legislative background.
In theory, in Romania the Parliament sets the general political framework of the education system. During the 1992 - 1995 period the Parliament has produced the basic elements for the steering of the higher education system, both private and public: the Accreditation law (law no.88/ 1993) and the Education law (law no.84/1995). The role of the Parliament was somewhat reduced by the fact that the education bill became a law 5 years after the start of the debates. During this period the Ministry of Education set the educational policy. This precedent has an important standing in the system. We should also mention that the Parliament did not produce any programmatic document for the reform of the educational system, whilst the Ministry of Education had a series of papers dedicated to this purpose.

The aims behind the higher education part of the laws of the education package have been: a better steering of the higher education system that has known an uncontrolled development in the years after 1990; the inclusion of the private scene in the legally constituted higher education sector; the definition of academic freedom and autonomy. Although several drafts of both laws have been prepared in the discussed period, both final versions relied on those prepared by the Ministry of Education. The laws had a relatively wide support of political parties both from the governing coalition as well as the opposition. A support of the National Council of Rectors through its president was also presented in Parliament in the case of the Accreditation law. Opposition to the accreditation law came from the interest group of private universities that considered the law too restrictive. The Education law was opposed mainly by organizations of the Hungarian minority (including the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania) and student organizations.

The Accreditation law (law no.88/ 1993) sets the procedures for the accreditation of higher education institutions. According to the law higher education institutions can only be created by law and the consent of the Ministry of Education and have to be non-profit institutions. The accreditation process has two steps:

• in the first step, a temporary functioning license is granted to the institution according to an evaluation consisting from: a series of indicators included in a self-evaluation report and an evaluation of the disciplinary committees of the National Council for Academic Evaluation and Accreditation.
  
  in the second step, accreditation is granted to all licensed institutions that had in the first three consecutive years, over half of their students passed degree examinations at prestigious institutions selected by the NCAEA.

The law also states that the name "University" can only be used by accredited institutions. Let me be a little more specific.

The law does not differentiate between public and private higher education setting a standard accreditation procedure. The NCAEA is to be a buffer organization with 19 - 21 members named by the Parliament at the proposal of the Ministry of Education. The NCAEA organizes the evaluation committees on disciplinary basis formed of specialists, using Romanian and foreign experts. The NCAEA is under parliamentary control, being subordinated to the Parliamentary Committee for Education (PCE). This Committee also agrees to the internal regulation set up by the NCAEA, according to which it functions.

In fact, we can currently state that the NCAEA was not formed at the proposal of the Ministry of Education as the law suggests, the political negotiations taking place in the PCE leading to a proportional representation of the political parties. That is, each party did promote in the NCAEA people according to its parliamentary proportion. These were generally not members of the respective parties, but independent academics known to have personal contacts or eventually political views close to the respective fraction. The NCAEA has currently 19 members, every 4 years one third of these having to be changed. The president of the NCAEA is prof.dr. Ioan Mihailescu, at that date vice-rector, now rector of the University of Bucharest. All the members of the NCAEA are full professors at large, public universities.

The temporary license is granted according to a number of performance indicators allowing the functioning of the institution until accreditation, except the organizing of the degree examinations that will have to be taken at another accredited university. The performance indicators will be included in a self-study, after which an evaluation committee will evaluate the institution and make a proposal to the NCAEA. The NCAEA writes the evaluation report based on which the government finally grants the license.

The law also contains a second chapter of "General Criteria". The criteria that appear in the law seemed at the start to be relatively restrictive, but have clearly contributed to the positive development of the sector. There are five groups of criteria referring to staffing, curriculum, material basis, research and finance.

The most important part of a university, in the opinion of the NCAEA, is its teaching staff, as I was informed during personal discussions with members of the NCAEA. As such the most restrictive part of these criteria refers to the teaching staff. To obtain the temporary functioning license the institution will have to have at least 70% of the teaching staff accredited as a teacher according to the provisions of the Statute of Teachers. At least 30% of the teaching staff will have to be associate or full professors according to the same statute. At least 50% of the teaching staff has to be employed full time and at least 30% of these will have to be associate or full professors. Later information has clarified the fact that all percentages are considered separately for each study program. If the first two conditions are easy to fulfill, most of the private universities had real problems in conforming to the last one.

Another important element is the building of a good material basis for the education process. As such, the institution have to prove that at least 25% of its income is used for investments, and that two education cycles (8 - 10 years) after the promulgation of the law at least 50% of its teaching space will be in the property of the institution.

All other conditions are less restrictive and easy to fulfill; the curriculum has to conform to national and international standards, all teachers will have to have some research activity, not necessarily within the university, the institution has to function on a non profit basis.

The law also states that an academic evaluation of all higher education institutions has to be organized by the NCAEA every 5 years. The results of this evaluation can determine the loss of accreditation. All institutions created before December the 22nd 1989 are considered accredited and have to face only the periodic evaluations. The law also includes the structure of the NCAEA and an addendum of indicators subject to discussion in the NCAEA.

The underlying principle of the law is as such program accreditation; non-licensed institutions are institution that do not have at least a licensed study program and are forbidden to continue their existence.

The higher education chapter of the Education law (law no.84/1995) includes special treatment of: short term higher education, long term higher education and post-graduate higher education. The main features of the higher education system as stated by the law are only to small extent different between the private and public sector:

• The functioning of higher education institutions is based on university autonomy.
  
  · Access to higher education is conditioned by a Baccalaureate. A Governmental Decision fixes the numbers of study places in public higher education. Entrance examinations to higher education are organized.
  
  · Public higher education is free of charge except a series of services as entrance examinations, re-examinations, repeating study years, etc. (this has changed radically!)
  
  · Students from public universities can receive scholarships offered by the Ministry of Education.
  
  · Short-term higher education (2 - 3 years) can be organized only in institutions also offering long-term higher education.
  
  · Graduates of short-term higher education (a.k.a. colleges) can continue their studies at long-term higher education programs.
  
  · Long-term higher education (4 - 6 years) ends by a degree examination ("licenta").
  
  · Graduates that want to pursue a teaching career have to take during their studies courses in pedagogy, teaching methods and psychology and participate in teaching practice.
  
  · Holders of a long-term higher education degree can continue their studies for 1 - 2 years in programs of in-depth studies ("studii de aprofundare") finalized by a dissertation.
  
  · Post-graduate higher education includes post-graduate courses, post-graduate schools and doctoral studies.

The most controversial article of the law, denounced by the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania, was a of list fields of higher education in which teaching can only take place in the Romanian language. A series of changes to the Education law have been changed by the Government Decision no.36/1997 and accepted by Parliament by law no. 151/1999, not influencing the situation of private higher education. The Accreditation law has remained unchanged.

As in most countries, the central level of the Romanian higher education system is located in the Government. There exist five only partly connected subsystems steered by different central bodies.

• · Higher education organized by the Ministry of Education: (50 inst.)
  · Private higher education (accredited or licensed): (68 inst.)
  · Higher education organized by the Ministry of Defense: (5 inst.)
  · Higher education organized by the Ministry of Internal Affairs: (1 inst.)
  · Higher education organized by the Romanian Information Service: (1 inst.)

As such on the level of the central authorities we will have to include the four ministries that actually steer and set the political agenda for higher education as well as the Ministry of Finance. The impact of financial and budgeting policies cannot be neglected. These determined most of the decisions of the Ministry of Education. On the other hand, the local authorities have no impact on higher education in the Romanian model. According to art. no. 12.(1) of the Education law "the Ministry of Education plans, fundaments and applies the global strategy for education, sets the objectives of the education system as a whole as well as the objectives of the levels and profiles of education".

The private higher education scene has no central steering. An umbrella organization of the private universities does formally exist as an "Association of Private Universities", intended to be a common negotiator in relation with forces external to the private higher education system. This organization has no decision making power and in fact no real impact on the system.

The Ministry of Education includes a Department for Higher Education headed by a vice-minister (denominated according to Romanian custom as state secretary) while in the other three steering ministries there are departments for education headed by general directors, or similar positions. The Department for Higher Education of the Ministry of Education includes the Implementation Unit for Higher Education Reform.

Contacts between the subsystems are relatively limited. The three "small" subsystems are as good as closed. In their case clear delimitation of the labor market niche as well as of the recruitment market for teaching staff leads to a very reduced inter-influence with other subsystems. This separation is somewhat decreasing since in 1992 a series of institutions of the army started in broadening their offer in civil specializations (mainly economics, engineering, etc.). The case of the "large" subsystems of public and private higher education is different as these used to share most of their teaching staff , have disciplinary structures closer to each other, and envisage at least partly the same graduate labor market (Reisz, 1992, 1993a). As such competition between these subsystems is relatively high.

Starting with 1993 a series of buffer bodies have come into being. The National Council for Academic Evaluation and Accreditation was created in 1994.This organization grants temporary functioning licenses to institutions seeking accreditation, having as such an important position in the system and representing the main way of influencing the private higher education scene. Co-operation between universities and the NCAEA takes place in the framework of the law. The rest of the buffer bodies have been organized according to the Education Law and include: the National Council of University Scientific Research and the National Council for Funding. Their impact on the system is rather limited, motivated by their shorter existence. All buffer bodies have legally a limited power, policy decisions being taken by the Department for Higher Education of the Ministry of Education. I should also mention the Consultative Group for higher education and scientific research, that has commissioned a coherent and comprehensive reform project (GCISCS, 1993) as well as other papers (CGHER, 1994). The Directions for the Reform of the Higher Education System in Romania were accepted as a guideline by the Ministry of Education (MOE, 1996). A clear acceleration of the education reform has started after prof.dr. Andrei Marga has become Minister of Education in 1998. The major programmatic documents that present his opinions are included in: Privire in viitorul invatamantului romanesc (A look upon the future of Romanian education, January 1998) and Reperele reformei invatamantului in Romania (Steps of the reform of education in Romania, May 1998). In this period important to the problem of private higher education are:

§ The acceptance of private higher education as an alternative to the public sector, proven by its mentioning in important statements of the ministry.

§ The creation of the legal basis for study fees in public higher education according to the Decision of the Ministry of National Education no.54-1998/99

Still, most of Marga's reforms have dealt with pre-university education. During the year 2000 no major reform steps concerning private higher education were mentioned in the official paper of the Ministry of National Education (MOE, 2000).

The development of the private sector in statistical sense.
Institutions, faculties and numbers of students.
Let me start with a general tabulation of the numbers of private and public institutions and the respective enrollment figures in the years since the beginning of the reforms in Romanian education:

Some documents include since 1995, 7 more higher education institutions in the public sector. These are 5 steered by the Ministry of Defense, 1 by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and 1 by the Romanian Information Service

after 1995 only licensed or accredited institutions are counted.

Currently public higher education is organized in 29 towns, in 50 (+7) institutions and 342 faculties. Private higher education is organized in 24 towns, in 68 institutions and 249 faculties. It is evident to conclude that private institutions tend to be smaller in number of faculties. The same holds for numbers of students.

The private sector currently also includes a number of 12 institutions of religious higher education. Of these 3 are Roman-Catholic, 3 Greek-Catholic, 2 Protestant and 4 Neo-Protestant institutions. I should mention that religious higher education is also organized in public institutions, were all Greek-Orthodox faculties and some of other denominations are placed.
As regard the distribution on citizenship, in public higher education 1997/98 236 thousand students were Romanian nationals and 13.9 thousand were foreign, while in the private sector 110.6 thousand were Romanian and 105 foreign students. No information of the distribution of students according to nationality could be found in public data.
The number of graduates of private higher education has increased from 5419 (1995, the first generation of graduates), to 16876 (1997).
Studies and scenarios made in the Ministry of Education in 1998 with a 2002/03 horizon considered an increase in the share of private higher education as public higher education has entered to enter a period of slower development. The data are below:

Data and predictions for student numbers 1996/1997 - 2002/2003 (thousands)

Source: Ministry of National Education, "Invatamantul superior intr--o societate a invatarii" - Linii directoare ale noii politici de dezvoltare a invatamantului superior in Romania", 1998. (Higher education in a learning society - directing lines in the development of higher education in Romania)

According to more recent data from the Ministry of Education the real increase in numbers of students in the public sector in the last years have been 249.857 in 1997/98, 270.817 in 1998/99 and 297.899 in 1999/2000. In 1998/99 the number of students of private universities has increased to 130.000. Recent data on the private sector (for 1999/2000) could not be found.

Private higher education according to forms of study (Novac, 1998)

Public higher education according to disciplines in 1997 - 1998 (Novac e.a., 1998)

Private higher education according to disciplines in 1997 - 1998 (Novac e.a., 1998)

Let us follow with an outline of the private higher education scene in Transylvania. In 1992 I thought to sense a certain resistance of Transylvanian academics towards private higher education. The explanation that I tried to accredit was related with the more conservative and law-abiding attitude of the Transylvanian population as compared to Southern Romania. If this was part of the truth it seems that the explanation can be sustained, for as private higher education became legal and gained in stability and prestige it started to develop in Transylvania as well. Still even today private higher education is much more concentrated in the capital than public higher education. The 22 private universities existing in 1997/98 in Bucharest (with over 80 faculties) covered 56.9% of the total enrollment in private higher education. The percentage decreased to 51% in 1998/99. In 2000/01 the number of universities in Bucharest has become larger reaching 31.

Currently (academic year 2000/2001) the number of higher education institutions in Transylvania is 19. These are located in 12 towns as follows: Alba Iulia (Gyulafehervar, 1), Arad (1), Baia Mare (Nagybanya, 1), Baile Herculane (Herkulesfurdo, 1), Blaj (1), Brasov (Brasso, 1), Cluj (Kolozsvar, 3), Lugoj (Lugos, 1) Oradea (Nagyvarad, 3), Satu Mare (Szatmar, 1), Sibiu (Nagyszeben, 2), Timisoara (Temesvar, 3). Next to these a series of institutions have also branches in Transylvanian towns. Four institutions from Bucharest have branches in Alba Iulia (Gyulafehervar), Blaj, Brasov (Brasso), Cluj (Kolozsvar), Deva, Sibiu (Nagyszeben) and Timisoara (Temesvar). None of these towns has branches of more than one institution from Bucharest. A private university from Iasi has a branch in Targu Mures (Marosvasarhely). There also exist institutions from Transylvania having branches in other towns of the region. The private university from Arad has branches in Satu Mare (Szatmar), Sebis and Sighetul Marmatiei (Sziget). A private university from Baia Mare (Nagybanya) has a branch in Cluj (Kolozsvar), one from Cluj (Kolozsvar) has a branch in Oradea (Nagyvarad) and one from Lugoj (Lugos) in Brasov (Brasso). The total number of Transylvanian locations that host a form of higher education increases as such to 16. It should be noted that the counties that have the highest proportion of Hungarian population (Harghita - Hargita, Covasna - Kovaszna and Salaj - Szilagy) have no higher education at all. The total number of faculties in private institutions located in Transylvania is 89. More detailed information on the regional repartition of private higher education for the 1998/1999 academic year is in the table below. I have set an asterisk to locations in Transylvania.

Private higher education 1998/99 in regional distribution (Source: Statistical Yearbook 1999)

Academics. Major trends and comparisons.
I should start by mentioning that the number of Romanian academic staff has increased in the last decade by 70% (Novac e.a., 1998). As early as 1990 major changes have also occurred in the structure of the staff. Currently roughly one third of the staff is formed by preparatori (a new position introduced in 1990) and assistants, one third lecturers and one third associate and full professors. The percentage of full professors has doubled between 1989 (10.5%) and 1998 (20.8%).

As already mentioned private higher education was started primarily by academics from the public sector. We have already mentioned that in the 1990 - 1995 period these were the ones holding all major positions. After the accreditation law a radical change was imposed by the conditions of the law. This change has led to the appearance of academic staff primarily employed in private higher education. Still, the most recent values credit private universities with only 3000 members of academic staff employed on a full time basis compared to 23000 in the public sector (1998/99).

Structure of academic staff in the public sector 1997/98 (Novac e.a., 1998)

Structure of academic staff in the private sector 1997/98 (Novac e.a., 1998)

As seen above the only major difference in staffing structure is the higher number of preparators in the private sector. These are the youngest academics, the position being not tenured limited to three-year contracts.

The staff primarily employed in the private sector is actually formed by these preparators and a group of higher academic positions that have been lured by higher earnings to the private sector.

According to information directly from the CNAEA, the percentages of full-time and part-time staff comply exactly with the provisions of the accreditation law, presented above.

A recent study on academic value systems (Reisz, 2000) found no differences between the public and the private sector, a prevalence of Central European Humboldtianism as a higher valuation of research and science above teaching and service. Academics are conservative, internationalist and surprisingly optimistic as regards their abilities, their future as well as the future of the country.

Financing of private higher education.
Private higher education is still as good as 100% financed from study fees. There has existed no allocation from the state budget and also none from local authorities. Some private universities in press releases as well as interviews have mentioned a small amount of sponsorship, but the amount of these cannot be computed.

Let me nevertheless present some consideration on the financing of the public sector and comment on possible changes in the financing of the private sector as well.

According to the Education Law 4% of the GDP should be granted to Education. This has not been the case up to now. The budget allocations for education have been since 1990 between 2.5 and 3.5%. Considering other sources of income the education budget surpasses nevertheless the envisaged 4%. Major changes of financing have occurred in the last decade. I have to mention the complete decentralization of financing. Pre-university education is since 1999 financed completely by local authorities (after a part of the financing has already been located there in 1995), while higher education is financed on a formula basis and institutional autonomy is granted. This leads to a yearly negotiation of student numbers between institutions and the Ministry. A supplementary number of students are admitted on a fee-paying basis. An important new concept was introduced in 1998 in the financing of higher education, the distinction between basis funding (resulted from the formula) and complementary funding (mainly through research contracts, but other contracts being also possible) (Decision of the Minister of Education no. 3132 of 19 January 1998). The idea of co-financing (with participation of the students or other stakeholders) has also been accepted.

The structure of the financing of higher education have been in 1993 as follows (ISE, 1993):

This has changed reaching in 2000/2001 a projection as follows (Marga, 2000):

The first major change in the financing of private higher education could come from the possibility of these institutions to compete for complementary funding at the National Council for University Research or other institutions. Even if this is not yet the case such proposals have existed and been positively discussed at decision-making level. The possibility of private higher education to receive allocations from the state budget, even if mentioned in the Education law is highly improbable in the near future as allocations to public higher education have always been insufficient and even the legal level of a 4% of GDP funding of education has never been reached.

Some final comments.

I did not intend to present scientific results in this article and there are in fact as good as no relevant research results on Romanian higher education published in Romania or abroad. I have written some descriptive as well as analytical papers on the subject I have quoted in the report. I will in the following simply comment on the data presented above.

Private higher education has clearly lost in the last few years its adventurous touch. The current situation finds the sector as a valid, almost accepted alternative to the public system. The state practically profits from the possibility of increasing the availability of higher education at minimal costs, while different organizations, to mentions for instance religious groups are able to organize higher education with a lesser involvement of the state than otherwise. The large number of students and the growing number of graduates show that private higher education managed to stand its own on the labor market no discrimination between degrees being reported.

The only problem that appeared recently is a mass-media scandal on a series of private and public higher education institutions that have issued false degrees. There are actually two different situations. On the one hand there have been issued diplomas for persons that have not completed their studies. These situations have been both at private and at public institutions and have generally involved foreign nationals as the beneficiaries of the fraud. On the other hand private institutions that have not received the temporary license have continued to function and have also issued diplomas that are according to the law not valid. In some cases these diplomas have indeed been forgeries in the sense that they used the signs of the Ministry of Education. These scandals will hopefully not destabilize the system.

The private sector can also become an interesting alternative in the case of development promotion of a region, as could be in case of the Szekelyfold. It should be mentioned that currently only two colleges (one for primary school teachers and one administrative college) representing branches of the University of Cluj are available in the area. Following the model that was successfully applied in the late 60th and early 70th to develop the Eastern part of Holland and respectively the Ruhr area in Germany, the development of higher education facilities in the area might improve opportunities for the young generation and in the long run lead to economical development of the region. Both the Dutch and the German governments mentioned, had to cope with a need for a general reorientation of the economical profile. If in Eastern Holland it was the textile industry that had closed doors, in the Ruhr it was mining and heavy industry. Even if the situation is only partly similar to the Transylvanian case, a clear need for the development of new industries is needed in the area and the emergence of local higher education could raise the number of young entrepreneurs that would continue their career there.

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Annex 1. The list of Romanian private higher education institutions. (Source: Ministry of Education and Research, 2001)

Annex 2. List of the current members of the National Council of Academic Evaluation and Accreditation. (Source: NCAEA, 2001)

1. Prof.dr. Ioan MIHAILESCU - president - Universitatea din Bucuresti (sociology)

2. Prof.dr. Laurentiu POPESCU - vice-president - Universitatea de Medicina si Farmacie "Carol Davila" din Bucuresti (medicine)

3. Prof.dr. Paul STERIAN - secretary - Universitatea "Politehnica" din Bucuresti (engineering)

4. Prof.dr. Vasile MORAR- member of the Permanent Bureau- Universitatea din Bucuresti (humanities)

5. G-ral de Brigada Prof.dr. Florentin MORARU - Academia Tehnica Militara din Bucuresti (engineering)

6. Prof.dr. Oprea CALIN - Academia de Stiinte Economice din Bucuresti (economics)

7. Prof.dr. Horia CRISTEA - Universitatea de Vest din Timisoara (economics)

8. Prof.dr. Sergiu CHIRIACESCU - Universitatea T