Research into the linguistic landscape of educational spaces, or educationscapes (Krompák et al., 2022), highlights the symbolic significance of these environments. The linguistic landscape within educational contexts offers valuable insights not only into the signage within these spaces but also into broader societal trends. Building on the idea that language ideology is closely tied to educationscapes, this study examines the linguistic landscape of three higher education institutions in Romania: the University of Medicine in Targu-Mureș, Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, and the Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania. These institutions offer Hungarian-medium programs for Romania’s Hungarian ethnic minority.

The analysis focuses on the presence or absence of multilingualism - specifically, the contrast between monolingual norms and multilingual diversity - within the linguistic landscape of these universities. While the first two institutions have official multilingual status, the third provides instruction exclusively in Hungarian. This study employs qualitative methods, with a focus on diversity sampling, to analyze photographic documentation (approximately 100-120 photos per university) of the current linguistic landscape. Additionally, a total of 12 interviews are being conducted – three at each university – to examine Hungarian minority students' attitudes towards multiculturalism and the presence or absence of languages in the linguistic landscape of higher education.

The findings suggest that the presence or absence of multilingualism often reflects the state's official language ideology, which predominantly supports monolingualism and does not necessarily encourage the use of Hungarian among minority speakers. Furthermore, the different institutional discourses, as mechanisms of legitimization (Waksman & Shohamy, 2016), and the promotion of either Romanian or Hungarian in these educationscapes may influence minority students' attitudes toward multilingualism, often hindering an ideology-free acceptance of linguistic diversity.