He was born in Višnja Gora near Ljubljana, Slovenia (then part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia) to a prominent upper-middle-class family.
His father, Josip, was a left-liberal political activist, leader of the Sokol movement in the Drava Banovina, and one of the founding members of the Liberation Front of the Slovenian People.
After finishing high school in Ljubljana, Veljko Rus enrolled with the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy.
[citation needed] He was visiting fellow at several western universities, including Poitiers in France (1957/58), Columbia (1968/69), and Berkeley.
In the early 1970s, after the removal of the Reformist Communist leadership of Stane Kavčič, Rus was again dismissed from the university.