The Catholic restoration gained ground in Sárospatak with the landowners' help. Zsófia Báthory gave the College's building to the vanguard of the Counter-Reformation, the Jesuits. In 1671 the members of the Reformed School had to run away. The teachers and the students were given shelter by Mihály Apafy, prince of Transylvania. They had tried to return to Sárospatak several times but they could only go back in 1703.

Being inspired with the Enlightenment, the School of Sárospatak flourished in the service of the national improvement. This was the place where the textbooks were printed in native language and the teaching was done in Hungarian instead of Latin the first time in Hungary (1810). Beside the high school the School of Sárospatak gave place to such a collage where pastors, lawyers and students in the faculty of arts where educated.