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Press release, 28^th January 2016

Graduates’ international mobility experience within the Erasmus+ programme strengthens their personality and improves their job prospects. However the recently released Erasmus Impact Study Regional Analysis undertaken by CHE Consult for the European Commission reveals that the effects might not be equally positive for everybody. To a great extent it depends on who goes, where and at what age.

 

In Southern Europe, Erasmus helps in fighting unemployment

In Southern Europe, a region severely hit by the financial crisis and youth unemployment, mobility experience helps students to find a job abroad. Erasmus alumni from Southern Europe are half as likely to experience long-term unemployment compared to those who did not go abroad. Also 45% of Erasmus alumni changed their country of residence or work after graduation, while only 19% of those that were not did so. Moreover, 45% of Southern European students on international work internships received a job offer through this experience

 

In Eastern Europe alumni with international experience easily get managerial positions

In Eastern Europe, mobility experience is highly valued by local employers. 70% of companies in the region have declared that they assign higher professional responsibility to alumni with international experience and that they also offer them higher salaries. “In this region five to ten years after graduation, 70% of previously mobile alumni hold a managerial position compared to only 40% of those who did not go abroad during their studies,” says Uwe Brandenburg, Managing Partner of CHE Consult and Erasmus Impact Study project leader.

 

The best time to go abroad is before you are 23

The study reveals that Erasmus experience at a younger age provides a larger gain to students’ personality development while when older the added value of mobility slightly decreases.

 

Decision makers should know what has a real added value for their students, especially in Western and Northern Europe

“For the majority of students, mobility does help but averages can be misleading: not everybody benefits from mobility. It’s not good enough just to jump on the internationalisation bandwagon – the study shows that we have to measure outcomes,” says Uwe Brandenburg. The study’s conclusions suggest that particularly in Western and Northern European countries, higher education providers and decision makers should focus their attention on the effectiveness of internationalisation strategies, the quality of institutional partnerships, the design of the educational experience for incoming students and, last but not least, proper and sound evaluation of the actual impact in order to improve their policies.

 

About the Erasmus Impact Study

The original Erasmus Impact Study was concluded on a sample of 56,733 students, 18,618 alumni, 964 higher education institutions and 652 employer representatives. The data were collected in 2013 and first analysed in the Erasmus Impact Study published by the European Commission in 2014. That project was conducted by an international consortium led by the German higher education consultancy company CHE Consult. The recently released Regional Analysis, conducted solely by CHE Consult, constitutes a follow-up research bringing deeper insights into data related in particular to employability outcomes in the four regions of Europe as well as selected countries.

 

Contact person:
Uwe Brandenburg, PhD
Managing partner
CHE Consult, GmbH
CHE Consult Prague
Email: Uwe.brandenburg©che-consult.de
Tel: +
www.che-consult.de
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