The Central and Eastern European transitions have caused political, economic and social changes, which influenced the system of higher education institutions.

The social demands for higher education (massification) and its following institutional changes (expansion) have changed the system of higher education (Altbach et al. 2009, Hrubos 1995; Kertesi - Köllő 2006, Kozma 1998, 2010, Polónyi - Tímár 2001, Polónyi 2007, 2008, Shofer - Meyer 2005, Trow 2000). Because of the massification of higher education, the labour market situation of recently graduated HE students has become difficult (Falusné 2001, Polónyi - Tímár 2001, 2004). 

One way of dealing with this problem is investing into human resources (Varga 1998) or more precisely into human capital (Becker 1964, Schultz 1961) and this can be gained through adult education which is part of the lifelong learning paradigm (Jarvis 2008).

We assume that those higher education students who are taking part - or planning to take part - in adult education programmes are convinced that their investments will be profitable in the future.

For all of these reasons we can assert that graduated university and college students are in a rather difficult situation since having a university or college degree does not always guarantees success in the labour market.

Therefore, higher education students have to accommodate certain knowledge, competences and qualifications as well as practical experience which are not or only partly provided by their higher education institutions, but are expected by the labour market. On the one hand, these further qualifications and competences can be gained by experimental learning, on the other hand by the forms of adult education programmes.

Therefore we carried out a research which focused on HE students who took part in different kinds of adult education programmes (such as foreign language courses, computer science, skill-developing trainings, post-secondary education and training, etc.) to find out about their intentions and motivations.

Our main research question was the following: whether undergraduate and graduate students want to reach a better position in the labour market by taking part in adult education during their HE studies. Thus we wanted to know what kind of knowledge and skills they regard necessary to be more competitive in the labour market.

We also investigated the similarities and differences between undergraduate and graduate students’ participation in adult education.

The European dimension and significance of the research is highlighted by the fact that these countries (Hungary, Romania and the Ukraine) which took part in the research have recently implemented the European reform of higher education, known as the Bologna process. This challenge meant structural change of the systems of higher education in these countries, and undergraduate and graduate students have also had a major role in this process.

The results of our research can prove useful to inform leaders of education policy as well as leaders of higher education institutions since it provides a precise analysis on those undergraduate and graduate students who participated in adult education apart from their HE studies.

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