The Babeș-Bolyai University, founded in 1581 as a Jesuit college, is Romania's largest and oldest higher education institution. The main building on Strada Mihail Kogălniceanu, finished in 1872, is a neoclassical landmark — pediment, columns, the lot — with a grand staircase inside that students use as a meeting point.
The university's particular character is its trilingual instruction: courses are taught in Romanian, Hungarian, and German. Walking the surrounding streets gives a good sense of student life in Cluj — there are 70,000 students in a city of around 300,000.