The Romanian Higher Education (HE) system is coordinated by the Ministry of Education (ME). The list of all Romanian higher education institutions is available here.

The structure of the national education system 2021/22, Eurydice

Since 1999, Romania is part of the Bologna Process, which is a large-scale inter-governmental cooperation to make higher education systems comparable among the 48 European member states (from Portugal to Kazakhstan and from Norway to Malta). Thus, the Romanian higher education system is structured as follows:

• 1st cycle, BA (bachelor’s degree) – 3 years (or 4 years for some programs, such as engineering). EU regulated professions can include BA of 5 or 6 years such as: Medical, Pharmaceutical, Dental, Veterinary or Architectural studies;
• 2nd cycle, M.A.(master’s degree) – 1-2 years, depending on the study program;
• 3rd cycle, PhD studies – 3 years.The academic year starts in the first week of October. As Romanian higher education institutions are autonomous, they may decide on the academic schedule. Each year is divided into two semesters. Each semester lasts 14 weeks. As a student, you will have a summer holiday (typically from July until late September), a Christmas holiday, an Easter holiday (associated with the Orthodox Easter) and a short holiday (usually one week) at the end of the first semester.Examinations (oral or written) take place at the end of each semester. A re-examination period is typically scheduled before the beginning of the new academic year.In Romania, there are three multicultural and multilingual universities providing higher education for the national minorities: Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca offers courses in Romanian, Hungarian, and German; the University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Tirgu-Mureş and the University of Arts of Tirgu-Mureş, both offer courses in Romanian and Hungarian.

Number of students in Romania

Quick facts  

Romania has around 90 public and private HE institutions. For a full list, please see: EDU.ro

Romania had approximately 450,000 students enrolled in the 2020/2021 academic year (all cycles).

General advantages

• Flexibility in courses delivery - online courses are available
• Research oriented postgraduate programmes are widely available
• Scholarships, research grants
• Programs available in various languages - Romanian, English, Hungarian, French, German
• High quality level education evaluated regularly by the national quality assurance agency - ARACIS
• Recognition of your studies (according to EU Directives and the Lisbon Recognition Convention)
• The Diploma Supplement (DS) is meant to improve recognition of studies abroad and employability, issued by all universities automatically and in bilingual format, at the same time with your diploma
• Lower tuition fees compared to other EU states
• The opportunity to study in Europe´s fastest growing economy, in a very dynamic and rapidly developing economic landscape.

Student mobility – what is the ECTS (European System of Credit Transfer) and how does it help

The European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) allows you to be mobile, with the possibility of easily transferring learning outcomes between Romanian universities and foreign institutions. All Bachelor and Master programs use the ECTS system for both accumulation and transfer:

The 1st cycle (Bachelor) includes a minimum of 180 and a maximum of 240 ECTS and is finalised with the level 6 of European Qualifications Framework; more specifically, one year of Bachelor day studies corresponds to 60 ECTS, while a BA programme typically takes 3-4 years to complete, depending on the field and area of specialisation. The length of Engineering, Law and Theology studies is 4 years.

As EU regulated professions (with automatic recognition within the EU), the Pharmacy 5-year programme is the equivalent of 300 transferable study credits (ECTS equivalent), whereas the Medicine, Dentistry, Veterinary Medicine programmes, which last 6 years, are equivalent to 360 ECTS.

2nd cycle (Master's) includes a minimum of 90 and a maximum of 120 transferable study credits and takes 1 - 2 years to complete. In order to access the 3rd cycle (PhD level), 300 ECTS are needed. Post university programmes usually use ECTS as well and are finalised with an exam of certification of professional competences acquired during the programme.

The 3rd cycle (PhD). Doctoral studies in theory include 240 ECTS; advanced studies in Doctoral Schools include 60 ECTS. Full-time or part-time doctoral studies correspond to 3 years' work time. Some Doctoral Schools use ECTS only for the first year of advanced studies, to demonstrate accumulated credits for taught part of the PhD (involving class attendance). Some Doctoral Schools use, on the other hand, ECTS for the full programme of doctoral candidates (workload referring to taught courses and preliminary research papers).

Interested in being mobile? Romania is part of the Erasmus+ European Union mobility scheme. This means that each university has a number of short term (3-12 months) mobility scholarships available for its students, in order for students to be supported to go abroad on academic or internship-based mobility. More information about the programme is available at Erasmus+ section or on the websites of each university.

Improve your chances to get employed: the Diploma Supplement (DS) Universities issue a DS for the Bachelor Degree (first cycle) holders and for the Master Degree (second cycle) which describes the level, nature, content, context, and status of the studies completed by each graduate. The diploma supplement can be used as a grade transcript for the pursuit of further studies or employment.

The bilingual (Romanian and English) Diploma Supplement is automatically issued, free of charge, to all higher education graduates and it is attached to the original diploma in Romanian, together with a description of the national higher education system.