This article analyses whether graduates in university vocational courses benefited from better labour market outcomes in France than those in academic courses. We focus on bachelor degrees in France, comparing "general" or "academic" degrees with "vocational" degrees. The vocational bachelor degree was created in 1999…

This article discusses the most relevant findings of a comprehensive study carried out at the University of Helsinki Language Centre that looked into work-related foreign language needs of graduates from the University of Helsinki. The aim of this article is to provoke other language centres or similar institutions in other European universities…

Renewed public interest in the relationships between higher education and the world of work and a deficient data base contributed to the decision to undertake a major comparative study on graduate employment and work. In the framework of the CHEERS study, supported by the European Commission's TSER programme, some 40,000 graduates of the academic…

The relationship between higher education and employment is commonly interpreted in terms of the extent to which the higher education sector is providing graduates with the knowledge and skills to match employment needs. It is assumed that a mismatch between working in a job and level or field of education limits the use of skills, with adverse…

We shall analyse the different characteristics of entrepreneurs, the self-employed, and employees in public, private and non-profit organisations, based on a sample of young European higher education graduates. Using graduates self-assessment from a survey, several sets of characteristics such as social-demographic traits, educational and…

This article analyses the kinds of pedagogical approaches in universities that are provided for young and mature students and produce relevant outcomes for them in Germany, the UK and Japan. Andragogy is a concept of pedagogical approaches for adult learners in lifelong learning, but it should be empirically examined now in higher education in…

Measures of professional success provided by surveys on higher education graduates can be divided into objective (e.g. income or professional position) and subjective (e.g. job satisfaction, reported use of knowledge and skills, work autonomy) indicators. In this article a broad range of measures of professional success is used to describe aspects…

A mid-career survey of scientists and engineers who had and had not attained a doctoral degree examined their attitudes about the professional value of a doctoral degree in those fields. (MSE)

A followup study of 1965 applicants to the University of Helsinki focusing on the high school-university transition; student-college relationship, entry into the labor force, and memories of the university in the 1960s are discussed from the perspectives of life patterns and the changes in higher education since that time. (MSE)