The changing role of student mobility

Student mobility often is perceived as a relatively well-documented growth trend of a phenomenon mostly viewed a highly desirable. A closer look, however, suggests that information is shaky in many respects and does not confirm consistent growth according to various criteria and measures. The purposes of mobility vary and also the respective opportunities and problems. An in-depth analysis of the various objectives, trends, experiences and outcomes is timely when higher education is viewed as rapidly globalizing and when the programme of higher education in Europe, the Bologna Process, is expected to make higher education in European countries more attractive for students from other parts of the world and to facilitate intra-European student mobility. The conditions, processes and outcomes vary strikingly, if student mobility is vertical, that is, moving towards economically more advanced and academically superior systems, or horizontal, that is, between countries or institutions of more or less equal level of academic quality. This holds true as well depending whether mobility is intended to cover the whole degree programme or to be temporary, the latter for example in the framework of the popular ERASMUS programme. Figures on student mobility tend to lack precision because they often register only the nationality of students and to be incomplete with respect to temporary mobility. Absolute growth is a matter of fact, temporary mobility within Europe increases, and Europe hosts increasing proportions of foreign students, but the proportion of foreign or mobile students worldwide is stagnant. Temporary student mobility within Europe contributes strongly to an increasing reflective mind of the participant students. The academic and professional value is most highly appreciated by students from Central and Eastern European countries; overall, this value seems to decline amidst modern societies and higher education institutions becoming more international in many respects. Both the Bologna Process and the general globalization trend seem to support student mobility in some respects but to set new barriers in other respects.