Editorial

Abstract

The higher education systems and higher education institutions in Europe, especially in Central and Eastern European countries, are currently facing several challenges. The origins of these problems can be found in the post 1989 period, as the former socialist countries have experienced a massive expansion of the higher education institutions in the last two decades. As the result, the dynamic increase in the number of students, the emergence of private institutions and quantitative expansion of public academic centers could be observed. It is sometimes said that such developments have been a crucial factor of relative success of several transitional economies. But now it becomes clear that these systems face hard challenges due to demographic change, limited public resources and increased international competition. Therefore, this issue tries to address some of these challenges by adopting a wide range of theoretical and empirical approaches.