Hungary drove a top university campus into exile
JD Vance said it should be a model for the US
“The closest conservatives have ever gotten to successfully dealing with the left-wing domination of universities is Viktor Orbán’s approach in Hungary,” Vance said in 2024.
April 11, 2026, 6:30 AM EDT
By Alexander Smith
BUDAPEST, Hungary — The Central European University in Hungary’s capital still looks the part.
Its limestone entrance rises above a grand 1820s mansion, its newer additions all hard modern lines and confidence. It has won architecture awards. It was built to suggest a certain kind of Hungary, too: outward-looking, liberal, at ease with the West.
Today it is eerily quiet.
Founded by George Soros after the fall of communism, the university says the authoritarian government of Viktor Orbán forced 90% of its teaching operations out of the country in 2019, leaving behind a stark symbol of how far the nation has moved during the prime minister’s 16-year regime.
https://www.nbcnews.com/world/europe/orban-hungary-university-exile-jd-vance-model-us-rcna267253
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