One of the major changes in European higher education, following the Bologna Accord, will almost surely be the shortening of the total length of the studies. At present, in most continental countries -from Spain to Russia- it takes from 5 to 7 years average to get a university degree. After the implementation of the Bologna accord by 2010, there will be three consecutive degrees, following what, for example, already exists in the UK and Ireland: bachelor (3 or 4 years), master (1 or 2 years) and PhD or doctorate (at least 3 years).
A worrying question for many educational institutions in Europe is whether this segmentation of higher education degrees will prompt students to leave university after obtaining their first degree (bachelor), instead of continuing until they get their masters degree.
Tags(clickable): Santiago Iñiguez, Instituto de Empresa, Bologna Process, Bologna Accord
If we look at countries that already have a Bologna-alike system of bachelor + master, we get interesting but inconsistent data. In the US, for example, 1,291,900 students received bachelors' diplomas and 606,958 completed graduate programs in 2002, the most recent year for which figures are available. This shows that almost half of those with bachelor degree programs continue on enrolling in masters, maybe because, as Andrew Hacker points out, they "believe that a single degree won't suffice for what they want to do or be". On the other side of the Atlantic, 24% of UK students who hold a bachelor degree go on to further study, 64% of business undergraduates go directly into employment and 12% are not known. In Poland, 62% of the bachelors continue to full master level, according to figures collected by the Association of Business Schools (ABS).
At the latest Board meeting of EQUAL, held in Brussels last Monday, we brainstormed about those figures, presented by Jonathan Slack, and what they tell us for the future of university studies in Europe after Bologna. It seems that trends may vary from one country to another. If an important percentage of the students leave university after getting their bachelors, universities will face an excess of capacity -they will have less students in the second cycle than now- and competition among universities will increase considerably. This would probably be in the benefit of our customers, i.e., students and employers. Wouldn’t it be so?
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