The Rajk László College for Advanced Studies is in one respect an educational institution connected to the Corvinus University of Budapest (CUB), having its autonomy in self-governance, on the other hand it is also a democratic community of students living together. The college members have the same rights and engagements that other students of the University have, but over and above those they cooperate in fulfilling the College’s own mission.

The College was founded in 1970 by the students of our university. The main purpose of the College has been ever since to provide members with a wide range of possibilities for professional, social and political self-education and activity. We believe that the basic outline of the mission of our institution established at the time of foundation is still valid, though several elements of its contents have gone through substantial changes. The main elements of the mission have always been

• to provide opportunities for our students to achieve a high professional standard,
• to educate students to be well informed and socially sensitive intellectuals,
• to operate a democratic community and through that to raise the need and to teach the tools for an active citizen’s life.

The members of the College named the institution after László Rajk, who was a martyr of the communist regime (although himself a communist). This naming was a brave move in the early 1970s, since it expressed a strong critical attitude toward the existing social and political system of the time. This critical way of looking at things remained an essential characteristics of the College and it is always mentioned among the fundamental values held by college members. As a result, our college and its members have played important role in preparing and assisting the transformation of Hungary to a democratic country with a market economy.

Organization

The applicants to our college must be full-time students of CUB who have already passed at least two, but maximum four semesters. College membership terminates with graduation from the University. The number of College members varies between 80 and 90. Admission is decided by a seven member elected Admission Committee. However, the admission process itself is open for non-voting participation for all College members.

We have some non-student members who have special functions and responsibilities in managing the college, who are also required to live in: the Director, the Senior Advisor and maximum four Senior Fellows.

The operation of the College is based on self governance and the members’ volunteer activity. We have several institutions which are responsible for organizing our operation in different fields.

The main power of the College is the Assembly in which every member has the right to vote. It meets three or four times a semester. For day to day matters there is an annually elected Student Board that has regular meetings every week. Its members are: the Director, the Senior Advisor, the Chairman of the Student Board and six other students elected by the Assembly every February. The Committee for Academic Activities is responsible for the education and research activities. It organizes and supervises our courses and promotes academic publications. Its members are students.

Financing of our activity is based on various sources. We get support from various foundations, governmental and business institutions, based on occasional applications. Contributions from our alumni play more and more important role.

Operation and achievements

Each member of the College is a regular student of the CUB. The College requires extra work from the students, over and above the regular university activity. Our College does not offer any official degree to its graduates - they receive their diploma from the CUB.

The core of our activity is the education system. We invite respected professors both from and outside of the University to give courses on various subjects in economics, economic and public policy, business, management, sociology, political science, international relations etc. These are usually two semester courses and the attendees of each course have to give account of their professional work at the end of every single semester.

It is among our main activities to organize evening lectures on a very wide range of topics, usually once or twice a week. A large proportion of prominent personalities of Hungarian economic and business life (both academics and decision-makers) gave lectures at the Rajk College. Moreover we have managed to host a number of outstanding scholars from abroad, amongst them six Nobel Laureates (Kenneth Arrow, Gary S. Becker, John Harsanyi, Herbert Simon, Robert Solow, Vernon Smith).

In 1995 we have established a John von Neumann Award which is given annually to an outstanding scholar in exact social sciences whose works have had substantial influence over a long period of time on the studies and intellectual activity of our students. The Award has been given until now to John Harsanyi (UC Berkeley), Hal Varian (at the time University of Michigan), Janos Kornai (Harvard University and Budapest College), Jean Tirole (University of Toulouse), Oliver Williamson (UC Berkeley) Jon Elster (Columbia University), Avinash K. Dixit (Princeton University), Maurice Obstfeld (UC Berkeley), Gary S. Becker (University of Chicago), Glenn C. Loury (Brown University) and Matthew Rabin (UC Berkeley).

An other award of similar philosophy but for a different area has been established last year for those scholars whose scientific achievements have had a major influence of the development of business. The first recipient of this Herbert Simon Award was James March of Stanford University, while this year it was given to Henry Mintzberg of McGill University.

We also organize several major conferences each year. These are about topical issues, varying from economic theory questions to current social problems of Hungary. In every two-three years we have an international student conference on Central European issues.

One of the most important objectives of our College is to urge students to take part in research activities even if they do not want to have an academic career. The College creates an especially good atmosphere for creative work and this explains why the economics and business-related scientific student competitions in our country are dominated by the papers of our students.

As we have college members from three faculties of our university - economics, business and social sciences - interdisciplinarity is a very characteristic feature of the institute.

Our College has a lot of informal activities because the continuous appearance of self-motivated actions is among the most important values in our institution. It includes professional, cultural and sports events, evening lectures, debates and various kinds of social activities. The fact that we do not have any paid support staff indicates the importance of the members’ volunteer actions.

We are proud of the achievements of our graduates. Our specialty is that our graduates choose academic career in a much higher proportion than the average university graduate, and this have been steadily so during our whole history. A number of our graduates continue their studies (most of them in economics and usually for a PhD) at the world’s best universities (currently, for example, Berkeley, Harvard, Princeton, Northwestern, Stanford, Yale, London, Oxford, Cambridge, Sorbonne, Barcelona). The largest proportion of our graduates go to business, what is absolutely natural considering the education structure of our university. Many of our alumni have key positions in Hungarian business, among them there are chairmen and/or CEOs of some of the largest companies and banks. A relatively large number of our graduates have achieved high political and administrative positions after the democratic changes as members of the government, the Parliament and other important bodies.