Mobility of higher education students in Europe: the south-north differences

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the mobility of students and academic staff in European higher education. We focus on the differences of student and staff mobility between two groups of countries: the northern and central European (NCE) and the Mediterranean (Med) countries. Our findings show that; a) student mobility is concentrated in the northern part of Europe with southern Europe falling heavily behind; b) NCE countries are net exporters in academic qualifications while Med countries being the net importers of these qualifications; c) academic staff mobility is much higher in NCEs; d) the involvement of higher institutions in joint degrees (JD) is higher in NCE compared to Med countries. Hence, our findings suggest that within the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) substantial differences among its country members do exist and that policy measures may be needed to close these differences.