Increasing the rate of college or university graduates to 40 %

The Commission regards the report as a confirmation that the most important objectives of the Bologna Process have been achieved. Only the mutual recognition of qualifications would still be a problem. In a press release, Androulla Vassiliou, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth sounded confident with regard to increasing the rate of college or university graduates: “The new Europe 2020 strategy will (…) provide further impetus, in particular by encouraging measures, which aim to increase the number of graduates from less than a third to at least 40 % of the population”, said the Commissioner. Having a rate of college or university graduates of around 15 %, Austria is, however, far remote from this benchmark.

University access as a social issue

The Commission criticises the still unbalanced composition of students and blames the situation on the negligence of the Member States. More measures were needed to include socially disadvantaged groups in the tertiary education sector. Other important aspects of higher education policy, however, are being left out. Hence, it would be urgently required to discuss social selectivity of formal access restrictions, which are evident almost all over Europe within the scope of the Bologna Conference. Apart from that, more must be done to counteract the underfunding of universities than just demand the increase of private budget funds.

Further information:

Press release of the Commission on the Conference

The “Higher Education Report” in full text