Enrolment Quotas, First-Year Students and Unemployment of Higher Education Graduates – Interaction and Risks

This paper analyses enrolment quota movements, the number of students enrolled in the first year of higher education institutions, and the number of unemployed higher education graduates, with the purpose of indicating a specific existing trend that, should it continue, may result in an even higher discrepancy between the higher education system and the labour market. The analysis of enrolment quotas shows an upward trend in the observed period from the academic years 2013/2014 to 2019/2020. Furthermore, the analysis of the number of students enrolled in the first year of a higher education institution points to the fact that there are less students enrolling in the first year of a study programme each academic year in the observed period in relation to the offered enrolment quota. The number of students enrolled in the first year of a higher education institution varied depending on the academic year. The largest number of first-year students were enrolled in the academic year 2016/2017. The analysis of the number of unemployed persons indicates a continued growth in the number of the unemployed until 2013, following the global financial crisis, and a continued fall after 2013. The same growth trend until 2013 and fall trend after 2013 is visible in the number of unemployed higher education graduates. In this paper, a statistical correlation analysis was finally applied that calculates the correlation of variables, which are also indicated in numbers by the Pearson coefficients and coefficients of significance. While calculating the correlation among variables, a highly significant result was obtained that shows no existence of statistical correlation between the enrolment quota and the number of students enrolled in the first year of a higher education institution. The statistical unrelatedness of enrolment quotas and the number of first-year students indicates a discrepancy in the movements of enrolment quotas and the number of first-year students that can have negative long-term effects on the supply and demand of appropriate higher education occupations on the labour market. The purpose of this paper is also to indicate the discrepancy between the movements of enrolment quotas and the number of study programmes with the number of students enrolled in the first year of a higher education institution, which is observed from the results analysis of the collected data. The relationship among enrolment quotas, the number of study programmes and the number of students could be more aligned if it were based on analyses and the real demands of the labour market and society.