Hungarian higher education has a dual system, there are colleges and universities, some colleges are associated with universities as college faculties of the universities. Universities can offer college level courses, too. The tenure of training at college level (corresponding to B.Sc.) is 3-4 years; the tenure of education at university level (corresponding to M.Sc.) is 4-5 years (with the exemption of medical universities where the tenure of education is 6 years). Universities organise 3-year Ph.D. courses, specialised accredited further education courses (with a normal duration of 2 years) as well as various continuing education courses.
Hungarian higher education achieved a very high standard of excellence in the past and as a result enjoyed an excellent reputation throughout the region and the entire world. The system at one point produced the highest per capita rate of Nobel-prize winners in the world. However, the Hungarian higher education system was not well prepared to meet the challenges having been emerged at the end of the 20th century.
Until recently the number of higher education institutions was 89 (55 state, 28 church and 6 foundation institutions). The government having taken office in 1998 decided to establish a new network of integrated higher education institutions from 1 January 2000. The target institutions of the integration process were the state universities and colleges. Now we have 17 state universities, 13 state colleges (the number of state institutions was reduced from 55 to 30), 26 church-owned institutions and 6 foundation colleges.
Foreign students in Hungary
If a foreign student comes to Hungary for a complete study period (e.g. for 5 years to achieve an M.Sc. degree), the same rules are applied as for Hungarian students. In case of exchange students or when the support comes from a mobility project, the credit accreditation takes place according to the rules laid out in ECTS User’s Guide in a decentralised way. (The basic elements are as follows: ECTS co-ordinators of the home and guest institutions prepare the learning agreement together with the student based on the information packages of both institutions, the transcript of records of the student, conversion of grades to ECTS grades; and the guiding principle is the full academic recognition). If the foreign student is not an exchange student and comes individually, the precondition of the accreditation of a course unit is the overlap in at least 75 per cent between a course unit completed by the student in his or her home institution and a course unit in the curriculum of the Hungarian guest institution.
Foreign students studying in Hungarian language are generally obliged to pay the same amount as those Hungarian students who pay for all the expenses of their training, with the exception of young people belonging to Hungarian nationalities in countries neighbouring Hungary and students studying in Hungary in the framework of bilateral agreements between Hungary and other countries, students in the latter two categories are considered as state-funded ones. In some universities there are English (in some cases German) language programmes for foreign students for the complete period of their studies. The tuition fee in English and German language courses is 2000-3000 USD in a semester. These foreign language programmes give a good opportunity for student mobility, student exchange projects, since the foreign students do not have to learn the extremely difficult Hungarian language, they can join the English (or German) language programmes for half a year or one year.