The present paper analyses the motivations behind the complex vocational choices of higher education students of Cluj and the role of the students’ perceptions of the set of competences provided by the educational programmes. The research questions are the following: to what extent is the choice for a certain programme is being shaped by social background and ethnicity; is there such a tendency that in their choices students of lower social background are guided towards degrees easily marketable on the labour market, as a more cost efficient solution? The motivations behind vocational choices reflect educational aspirations, but we analyse whether these are based on professional interests or rather on cost-benefit calculations. The latter implies an expectation that certain degrees are readily and easily ‘transferrable’ to employment related income. At the same time we were interested in understanding how motivations are shaped by ethnicity and the language of education. Do the perceptions of the competences provided by high school and higher education programmes have a class-specific or other, sociologically relevant character, or are they related in any form to the motivations behind vocational choices? The empirical base of the research is provided by an on-line survey that was carried out in June 2015 among universities of Cluj on a sample of 3,732 students.
Keywords: higher education students; vocational choices; educational motivations; school competences; ethnicity
