According to a presidential decree published in the Official Gazette on March 28, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan revoked the operating license of Istanbul Bilgi University, which has about 20,000 students from Turkey and around the world. The decree takes effect immediately.
The text cited a law allowing the closure of private schools if “the expected level of education and training is insufficient.” The leadership of Bilgi University has not issued any statement regarding the closure.
Last year, the school was seized by the state in a criminal investigation after its parent company Can Holdings became involved in money laundering and tax evasion. Since then, Bilgi University has been run by a court-appointed administrator.
The Turkish Higher Education Council pledged to take “necessary measures” to ensure that students at this social sciences university, who are expected to take final exams in June, “are not harmed.” Local broadcaster TRT Haber reported that students will continue their studies at Mimar Sinan University, the state sponsor university.
Videos of dozens of students protesting at the school circulated online. Some held banners reading: “This is only the beginning, the struggle continues.”
Bilgi law professor Yamen Akdeniz wrote on X that “an institution built with 30 years of effort was shut down overnight.”
Bilgi University was founded in 1996 and is known for its liberal values. Its motto is “learning not for exams but for life.” It currently ranks 1,401st in the world according to the QS World University Rankings and participates in the Erasmus Mundus program.
