EUROSTUDENT VII

The EUROSTUDENT project collects and analyses comparable data on the social dimension of European higher education. A wide range of topics related to students’ social and economic conditions are covered. The project strives to provide reliable and insightful cross-country comparisons. It does this through coupling a central coordination approach with a strong network of national partners in each participating country. In this way, an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the respective national frameworks in international comparison can be made. The main users of our findings are higher education policy-makers at national and European level, [...] Full abstract: https://doi.org/10.21249/DZHW:es7:2.0.0

The EUROSTUDENT VII – Synopsis of Indicators is the central publication of the EUROSTUDENT project and the result of the collaboration of a European-wide network. It comprises data from student surveys conducted in 25 countries in the European Higher Education Area during the seventh round of the EUROSTUDENT project. Adopting a broad, comparative perspective, the EUROSTUDENT VII – Synopsis of Indicators provides information on students’ socio-economic and study-related backgrounds, their study conditions and experiences, including international mobility, and their living conditions. It aims to inspire policy debates on the topic of the social dimension and lay the ground for further research.

The EUROSTUDENT project collects and analyses comparable data on the social dimension of European higher education. A wide range of topics related to students’ social and economic conditions are covered. The project strives to provide reliable and insightful cross-country comparisons. It does this through coupling a central coordination approach with a strong network of national partners in each participating country. In this way, an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the respective national frameworks in international comparison can be made. [...] Full abstract: https://doi.org/10.21249/DZHW:es7:1.0.0

This edition of the Bologna Process Implementation Report charts important progress made over two decades when it comes to mobility, quality assurance and recognition, but also points to the work needed in the future. The report shows how European higher education systems advanced with concerted national reforms. This in itself is a remarkable achievement. Nevertheless, the process was not all plain sailing. Some countries moved faster than others, and some embedded reforms more deeply. As a result of reaching different levels of implementation, the foundations of the European Higher Education Area are not yet stable enough. Students, researchers and higher education institutions may still face unnecessary obstacles in their work together.

This Intelligence Brief takes a closer look at students’ health. Compared to the overall population of the same age, students less often perceive their health as good or very good. Logistic regression analyses with German student data show strong and negative relations between financial difficulties and students’ health perception. Additionally, a cross-country comparison with EUROSTUDENT data consistently shows comparatively large shares of impaired students among those with financial difficulties. The findings indicate that policy makers should pay special attention to both impaired and financially challenged students in order to ensure their successful higher education participation and prevent negative societal effects of poor health.

This publication presents indicators on the social dimension of higher education in the European Higher Education Area in four key areas: Demographics and social background of students, transition and access into higher education, students’ employment, and the financial situation of students. To what extent can students of different backgrounds be found within the higher education systems? How open and flexible are European higher education systems in providing access to students entering higher education at different points in their lives, and with different past experiences? What are the circumstances under which students pursue their studies and how do they make a living?

This contribution investigates students’ time budget across 28 European Higher Education Area member countries from a (descriptive) comparative perspective and it provides an in-depth analysis for Hungarian students. Whether students spend more time in direct interaction with teaching staff, or studying on their own, reflects the varying requirements set by different types of higher education institutions, fields of study, and study programmes. Additionally, time investments vary among different groups of students

With the introduction of higher education institutions following a different model than ‘traditional’ universities, access to higher education has been diversified. However, recent research has indicated that this institutional diversification is often accompanied by an increased degree of stratification with different types of institutions, or individual institutions, conveying different levels of prestige and, possibly, labour market returns (Arum, Gamoran, & Shavit, 2007; Reimer & Jacob, 2011; Triventi, 2013; Marconi, 2015; Marginson, 2016). Furthermore, existing research points towards the fact that students from disadvantaged backgrounds tend to concentrate in lower-prestige higher education institutions.

EUROSTUDENT data provide a comprehensive, comparative overview of students' social and economic conditions in 28 countries of the European Higher Education Area.

The conference is the main project event and serves to showcase and discuss the results and insights achieved through EUROSTUDENT by bringing together the involved stakeholders, researchers, and project teams, as well as interested project-external participants.