The Spatial Patterns of Student Mobility Before, During and After the Bologna Process in Germany

The paper contributes to the literature investigating students’ spatial mobility. By focusing on German higher education students with a novel dataset providing data from 1999 to 2015, we evaluate the impact of the change from a one-tiered to the two-tiered study structure of bachelor and master degrees (Bologna reform) on their inter-regional mobility and its underlying drivers. Our analysis confirms the system change to slightly alter inter-regional mobility of students. However, differences distinguish between different fields of study and universities und universities of applied sciences and indicate that the German higher education system is fairly resilient in its allocation of students. A Bologna-Drain of students moving from rural to urban regions to study master programs, can partially be confirmed for students of business studies. Our results reject the idea of (low) tuition fees discouraging students from enrolling in specific locations.