The transformed College of Debrecen, established in 1538, had a countrywide foremost role in the preservation and expansion of Hungarian education and culture for centuries.
Records from the history show that by the start of the 19th century, College had five departments; three of them were dedicated to teaching philosophy. Massive change came to existence in 1908, when the Rehabilitated Academy of Humanities was created and teacher training started, although within rather narrow bounds.
With the launch of Debrecen University development in the department of Higher education started immensely. The credit of this huge change goes to the people of Debrecen who really added their efforts to the foundation of a Hungarian Royal University in 1912, the same year when the one in Bratislava was founded. The new-fangled university was created out of the three academic sections of the College which are now known as faculties: theology, law, humanities, and it was also supplement by a medical school, whose teaching function was based on the town’s general hospital.
Education began at the four faculties in September 1914. Some faculties were located in the building of Reformed College which includes the Faculty of Arts for almost 20 years. The first one to receive an independent site was the Faculty of Medicine and it was during the World War 1. The construction of the university hospital began on a secluded, wooded ground of 116 hectares. There were almost a thousand people working at the site, most of them prisoners of war. Charles IV. The last king of Hungary, opened the main building of the medical school in 1918, and the medical campus was completed in 1927.