The high school was opened with an initial teaching staff consisting of seven professors from the Old Kingdom, one French professor, one Macedonian, and the rest from Transylvania, many of them also teaching at university. The first director, Alexandru Ciura, built the institution as an educational and cultural landmark of Cluj, described by musicologist George Zbârcea as "the high school of Transylvania."

Among the college's alumni are five full members of the Romanian Academy — Emil Burzo, Eugen Pora, Alexandru Roșca, Cristian Sorin Silvestru and Petre Spacu — along with writers such as Radu Stanca, Horia Stanca and Ioan Alexandru, literary critics such as Ion Negoițescu and Marian Papahagi, musicians, theologian Teofil Herineanu, philosopher Petre Țuțea and politician Ion Rațiu.

The institution operated almost uninterruptedly as a theoretical high school, except for the period 1977-1990, when it became the Industrial High School of Post and Telecommunications. In 2000 it received the status of National College, which it has maintained since. Today it has 30 classes and 750 students, with profiles in mathematics-computer science, philology with bilingual study of Italian and social sciences, as well as primary and middle school classes studying English, Italian and French.

This year's anniversary was marked by cultural activities, book launches and alumni reunions, some organized 55 years after graduating high school.

For Clujeans who left the country, the landmark recalls an institution that has formed generations of culture and science figures in Transylvania.