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Concept
Master's degree in Europe
Summary
Master's degrees in Europe are the second cycle of the Bologna process, following on from undergraduate bachelor's degrees and preceeding third cycle doctorates. Master's degrees typically take two years to complete, although the number of years varies between countries, and correspond to 60 – 120 ECTS credits. Within the European Higher Education Area, representing almost all countries in Europe, master's degrees are referenced to the Framework of Qualifications for the European Higher Education Area and national qualifications frameworks.
Through the Bologna initiatives and support of the European Union, Europe is unifying and standardising especially the structure of their masters' programmes, making them more and more accessible to foreign students.
An often cited advantage of the European universities is an advantageous cost/quality ratio. In Europe, especially continental Europe, universities are heavily subsidized by their national governments. In Germany, Scandinavia or Eastern Europe for instance, most masters programmes have been traditionally totally free of charge. Recently, these governments are discussing and/or introducing tuition fees. E.g. Sweden started charging tuition for non-EU students in 2010 and Finland started charging non-EU/EEA students in 2017.
Diplom
In Austria, one obtains a bachelor's degree after 3 years of study and a master's degree after 2 more years of study. This is true for both the "research-oriented university" sector as well as the "university of applied sciences" sector which was established in the 1990s.
Medicine and dentistry pose an exception; these studies are not divided into bachelor's and master's degree, but take 6 years to complete and the degree obtained is called "Dr. med." (However this is not an equivalent to other doctoral degrees, as one writes a "diploma thesis" and not a "doctoral thesis" or "dissertation".)
In addition to traditional master's degrees, Austrian universities also offer the Master of Advanced Studies which is a non-consecutive continuing education degree.
Official source
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