Dr. József Domokos, Dean of the Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania, Târgu Mureș Faculty, emphasized that the university places great importance on supporting students with families by providing various flexible options. He cited the personalization of exam periods as an example, which allows students to better balance their studies with family life.
Do you think it is important for young people to be able to start a family while studying in higher education, and if so, why?
“It never crossed my mind to advertise the university as a place specifically for family-oriented students. Young people need to support their families, which means they need to work. The goal should not be to encourage university students to start families prematurely. However, if they already have children, then, of course, we must do everything we can to support them in completing their studies. We had an example this year of a married couple, both in a master’s program. The wife gave birth in January, and by July, both had successfully defended their theses, taking turns holding the baby while the other took exams. These are individual cases, and we support them in any way we can.”
What does your institution do to support students with families, whether at admission, during their studies, or after graduation?
“The most important aspect is the exams, allowing for flexible exam periods. We provide an extra exam period for students with families based on individual requests. We don’t have centralized institutional solutions, but individual ones that we always adapt to specific needs by making the educational system and exam dates more flexible for them. Unfortunately, we cannot permit individual curricula, as we only have full-time programs. If we offered part-time programs, it would be more accommodating in this regard.”
Do you plan to expand upon these measures, and if so, what guidance do you expect from the NOE research?
“We should launch a part-time program, where students with families would have a much more flexible curriculum, receiving course materials and then taking exams on an individualized schedule with some consultations. Full-time study isn’t ideal for those who work and have families. We have a dormitory for families, and students with children also receive social assistance. This was the case for the students I mentioned earlier while they weren’t working. However, the social support was so minimal that they were forced to work, and the husband ultimately took six years instead of four to complete his studies.
He found work elsewhere, commuting to university, which was challenging… This is the issue with these situations. The main problem for today’s young people is that they go to university, and instead of finishing their bachelor’s degree at 22 and their master’s by 26 at the latest and starting work, the average completion time for a three-year program is nearly four years, and more than five for four-year programs, as students work, miss exams, and enroll in supplementary years. It’s not an isolated phenomenon; we have a significant number of students in supplementary years, which extends the study period, followed by a master’s degree. Naturally, this delays family formation. If everyone waited to finish university, they could start a family at a more ideal time. From accreditation data, I see many students struggle, especially in technical fields, where 80% of third-year students are already working. This is where the problem starts: they go for an internship, where their skills are noticed, and they get hired. They work, don’t attend university, fail exams, and fall into a cycle of enrolling again years later. Some take ten years to finish their bachelor’s degree. Ideally, we would provide a scholarship large enough so that students don’t have to work while studying, allowing them to complete their studies smoothly. Young people are forced to work because their parents are employed as cooks or day laborers at minimum wage, so they have to work. We offer less scholarship support than public universities, which technically should be enough for a student to survive, along with a smaller social scholarship. If they receive both, they can barely make ends meet if they stay in a dormitory and eat at the cafeteria. But once they start working, they fall into a vicious cycle. It’s impossible to do everything at once, and if a family comes into the picture on top of that… The state should help by covering students’ financial needs through scholarships while they study so that they can finish their degrees in 3-4 years and then work and start families in good time, while still young.”
What kind of programs or support outside of higher education would you consider beneficial to encourage family formation?
“The most important would be housing assistance, providing students with housing at a reduced rate with state support. Tax incentives would be the next helpful measure, for example, allowing families to pay half the taxes that others do. Counseling would also be essential; I attended a premarital course organized by the church, but there isn’t much like this from the state. Children need to be educated on these issues, explaining the order of life, starting in high school. Things must happen in sequence. Trying to do everything simultaneously is unsustainable.”
Why do you think young people are delaying family formation more and more?
“Of course, society is aging. Decades ago, there were far fewer university students, and a 20-year-old could already have children. Currently, 16% of Romania’s population has a higher education degree, and this percentage is just now starting to improve. The EU is also working toward increasing the number of university graduates. The difference from previous decades is that with more people pursuing higher education, family planning is delayed. In the past, this delay only occurred for those continuing their education, but they were few, and others could start families earlier. The solution isn’t for young people to have children while still in university, but to finish university on time so they can have more children if they start at a reasonable age. If they start having children at 30, it becomes challenging.”
