At the same time the university system contributed to unemployment, with highly educated and resentful Albanians becoming prime recruits for nationalist sentiment.

[9] The demonstrations started on 11 March 1981, originally as a spontaneous small-scale protest for better food in the school cafeteria and improved living conditions in the dormitories.

This time, the police used force to disperse a sit-in by Albanian students in a dormitory, injuring 35 people and arresting 21.

[5] During the 80s, the university, however, continued to back requests for change of Kosovo's status[1][better source needed] and the spread ideology of Enver Hoxha and Maoism, and the propagate creation of Greater Albania, mostly due to Albanian professors from Tirana.

[1][better source needed] At the end of the 1980s, at the behest of Slobodan Milošević, the constitution of Serbia was changed and the autonomy of Kosovo curtailed.

Albanian lecturers and students widely refused to accept the new curricula and educational changes imposed by the Serbian Parliament, also protesting against the ongoing curtailment of Kosovar autonomy in general.

[5] The Rector, Professor Ejup Statovci, was imprisoned after writing a letter asking for the university buildings to be returned to the Albanian faculty and students.

A new enrolment policy was implemented which – in theory, provided for a one-to-one ratio between the two language groups, i.e., 1,580 full-time students in each, commencing from the start of the 1991–92 academic year.

Remaining Albanian professors have continued to work for a while; however, after a year and a half of boycott, they were technological surpluses and were mostly dismissed.

Those who were needed have been offered to work on education in Serbian language; however, because of threats and pressure directed at them by other Albanians, very few remained.

[5] The university, which also called itself the University of Pristina, was financed by the Albanian diaspora and parallel tax system and existed without any connection to the academic system, which led to a worsening of the quality of education (for example, students of medicine had no access to clinics, laboratories or other necessary equipment[1][better source needed][14]).

[15] According to the agreement between Slobodan Milošević and Ibrahim Rugova, Kosovo Albanians should get control over 60% of the university campus, Serbs 35%, and Turks 5%.