About the project

Title of the project:

  • Access to higher education in post-communist Romania/ Accesul la învățământ superior în România post-comunistă

Project acronym:

  • AHE-RO

Project coordinator:

  • Professor Bogdan Costin Murgescu, Ph.D

Organization:

  • University of Bucharest

The duration of the research project:

  • June 2022-December 2024

Institution financing the project:

  • Autoritatea Națională pentru Cercetare Științifică din România, CNCS -UEFISCDI

Short description:

  • Education is one of the key elements of social progress in the modern world. Access to higher education is crucial both for the build-up of human capital in what becomes increasingly a knowledge-based economy and as a major factor influencing the structure of contemporary societies. The „Access to higher education in post-communist Romania” (AHE-RO) research project aims first to document the evolution of access to tertiary education since 1990 and to assess the factors which have influenced access and attainment. One of our major hypotheses is that the equity of access, which was also limited during the communist regime, declined even further during the post-communist transition and that increasing social polarization has become a major obstacle to the enlargement of access. As the historical contributions regarding post-communism have mainly focused on political and economic aspects, the approach of studying the nexus between educational attainment and social polarization is highly original and has the potential to highlight important aspects of the post-communist transition. At the same time, the concrete historical data and analysis can contribute to the existing social sciences debates about the relationship between social background and educational attainment levels. A special element is also the investigation of the relationship between social background and the ability of students to take advantage of the increased opportunities to study abroad.

Key Words:

  • postcommunism, access to higher education, human capital, globalization of higher education, unequal opportunities for higher education.

Operational objectives and milestones:

The general objective of this research is to assess the variety of ways the post-communist transformation influenced the access of Romanian citizens to higher education. To achieve this goal, the project has several operational objectives, aiming to clarify the following issues:

O1. The quantitative reconstruction of access to higher education in post-communist Romania (3 milestones):

  • Comparative statistics of educational attainment in post-communist countries.
  • Quantitative analysis of enrolments in Romanian institutions of higher education (with breakdowns for each study level, study form etc.).
  • The stock of higher education graduates in post-communist Romania.

O2. Assessment of supply-side policies to provide access to higher education in post-communist Romania (6 milestones):

  • The evolution of admission processes to Romanian higher education.
  • Expansion of public universities in Romania after 1990.
  • The rise and decline of private higher education.
  • Demographic constraints and the contraction of the Romanian higher education system.
  • Positive discrimination in providing access to Romanian higher education – the experience of special study places for Roma.
  • The evolution of support schemes for different categories of students.

O3. Identification and assessment of factors increasing/limiting access to higher education (4 milestones):

  • Economic costs and affordability of higher education in Romania.
  • Identification and assessment of the relationship between the choice of various higher education trajectories and the patterns of intergenerational preservation/improvement of socio-economic status.
  • Case-study: The student population of a university in an economically distressed region.
  • Case study: Social dimensions of access to an elite university (medicine/architecture etc.)

O4. Impact of globalization on the access to higher education in post-communist Romania (4 milestones):

  • Access to international mobilities – experiences from Romania’s participation in the TEMPUS and Erasmus programs.
  • Romanians studying abroad – patterns, trends, outcomes.
  • Romania as a study destination – access of foreign students to Romanian higher education.
  • Romania in the European Higher Education Area – comparative analysis with a selected post-communist country.