Higher Education Policies and Employability of University Graduates in the EU-28

Objective: The main purpose of this research is to analyze and reveal if the recent policy measures in higher education carried in European Union member countries have had a significant impact on the labour market integration of university graduates.

Methodology: We selected a set of indicators that were common in the 2015 and 2016 editions of Structural Indicators for Monitoring Education and Training Systems in Europe and could offer an image of intensity of higher education policies in relation with labour market at European level. We further used these measures to test for any significant effects of the policies on the integration of graduates in the labour market.

Findings: We found significant effects of various policy measures in high education in the European countries. We estimate a positive role for factors like monitoring of completion rates, requirements for the staff to have higher education, presence of educational guidelines, and recognition of formal and informal learning for entry in higher education.

Value Added: This is the first study to address the impact of high education policies carried in European countries on the integration of college graduates. The study is distinct through both the design of new measures of higher education policy in Europe as well through testing whether the intensity of policies carried for higher education has affected the employability of young graduates or not.

Recommendations: The results of this empirical research allow us to make some recommendations for improving the insertion of young graduates on European labour market.