According to the 2002 government census, Romania has 21.7 million inhabitants: 89.5 percent are Romanian, 6.6 percent Hungarian, 2.5 percent Roma, and 0.3 percent German and Ukrainian. It is noteworthy that Romania was the only Eastern European country that in 1989 experienced a violent change of regime. The ensuing years brought an economic and societal transition that was slower and more problem-ridden than in other countries in the postcommunist region. The Romanian economy went through a massive recession throughout the decade, with the gross domestic product falling by 40 percent, industrial production by 45 percent, and inflation increasing a thousand-fold (Salagean 1999). In this context, the higher education system was, as in other Balkan countries, probably the best-functioning of all civil institutions, as well as the closest to Western systems (Daxner 2003). The liberalization of the higher education system, particularly in the early 1990s, became a focus of public interest and an important challenge for a society undergoing transition and a national government striving to decentralize public institutions and promote autonomy. In the 1989-90 academic year, the Romanian higher education system included 164,307 students, while the teaching staff of 11,696 was smaller than in 1970. At that time, the curriculum was strictly controlled, as all-important decisions were centralized. There were no elective courses and academic research was underfinanced. After 1990, however, reform in higher education would begin to bring change in these and other areas.