Bilkent University

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BILKENT UNIVERSITY

nonprofit private university in ankara, turkey.

Bilkent University was established in 1984 by a nonprofit foundation. Its founder, Professor Ihsan Doğramaci, who was serving as chairman of the Council of Higher Education at the time, received much criticism for being the benefactor of his own university.

Bilkent admitted its first students in 1986. In 2003, it had nine faculties (art, design, and architecture; administrative and social sciences; business administration; education; engineering; humanities and letters; law; natural sciences; and music and performing arts), five vocational schools (applied languages; applied technology and management; computer technology and management; English; tourism and hotel services), and six research institutes. Its language of instruction is English.

In 2002, Bilkent employed 1,230 faculty members (of whom 1,010 had full-time and 220 had part-time appointments) and had 10,086 students (of whom 2,274 held full scholarships and 110 were international).

Bilkent was the only private university in Turkey until 1993, when several other nonprofit universities were established. As a private university, it has higher tuition and fees than the state universities, but these charges are comparable to those of other private universities. Like its counterparts, the university receives financial support from the state. In 2003, its budget amounted to 97,100 billion Turkish liras, 4 percent of which came from the state.