How Higher Education Works in Romania: Degrees, Universities and the Academic Year

The three-cycle degree structure

Romania built its higher education system around the Bologna Process, the same three-cycle model used across the European Higher Education Area. You move through a bachelor's, a master's and a doctorate, each measured in ECTS credits that transfer between Romanian universities and most of Europe, according to Eurydice .

A bachelor's degree needs 180-240 ECTS credits. Most fields, including humanities, social sciences and economics, take 3 years (6 semesters). Engineering, law and theology take 4 years. Medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine and architecture, regulated at EU level, take 5-6 years, based on the official Study in Romania portal.

A master's degree runs 1-2 years and adds 90-120 ECTS on top of your bachelor's. A doctorate takes 3 years: an initial phase of coursework and around 60 ECTS of advanced study, followed by independent research that ends in a public defense and a PhD diploma.

Public and private universities

Romania counts around 90 accredited higher education institutions, roughly 53 public and 23 private, per the last published Study in Romania figures. Public universities dominate the largest cities: Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Iasi and Timisoara host the biggest multi-faculty institutions, alongside specialized medical, technical and arts universities.

Public universities offer both state-subsidized (budgeted) places, free of tuition, and fee-paying places for students who miss the subsidized cutoff. Private universities charge tuition for every place. Both types go through the same national accreditation process run by the Ministry of Education, so a degree from an accredited private university carries the same legal standing as one from a public university.

Every accredited program, public or private, goes through evaluation by the Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ARACIS), which reviews curricula, staff and facilities on a set cycle. Checking a program's accreditation status before you apply protects you from unrecognized private providers operating outside the official system.

The academic year and calendar

The academic year starts in the first week of October and runs to late September the following year, split into two semesters of about 14 weeks each, according to Study in Romania. Each semester ends with an exam session, followed by a resit period before the next semester begins.

Breaks fall around Christmas, an Orthodox Easter break in spring, a short mid-semester week, and a long summer break from July into late September. Exact dates shift by year and by university, so check your chosen university's calendar once you have an offer.

Enrollment itself usually happens in the final weeks of September, after admission results, so plan your travel and housing search around that narrow window rather than the official October start date.

Teaching languages

Romanian is the main teaching language, but full degree programs in English exist at most large universities, alongside smaller numbers of programs in French, German and Hungarian. Medicine, engineering, business and computer science carry the widest range of English-taught programs aimed at international students.

English-taught programs typically list their own separate tuition track and admission requirements, including an English proficiency certificate such as IELTS or TOEFL, or a placement test run by the university itself if you do not hold one.

If you apply to a Romanian-language program and Romanian is not your first language, universities require a Romanian language certificate or a preparatory year before your degree starts, per Study in Romania's admission rules .

Grades, credits and moving between universities

Romania uses a 1-10 grading scale, with 5 as the pass mark and 10 the top grade. ECTS credits attached to every course let you transfer between Romanian universities, or bring in credits earned abroad through Erasmus+ or another exchange, without repeating coursework you already passed.

Some universities also run continuous assessment through the semester before converting your result to the 1-10 scale on your transcript, so ask your faculty how coursework, exams and attendance combine into your final grade for each course.

If you hold a foreign school diploma or university degree and want it recognized in Romania, the National Center for the Recognition and Equivalence of Diplomas (CNRED) handles the process as Romania's ENIC-NARIC contact point, per CNRED .

How Romania fits into the European system

Because Romania follows Bologna and ECTS like the rest of the EU, your degree, credits and grades read the same way in other European countries. A Romanian bachelor's qualifies you for a master's anywhere else in the European Higher Education Area, and a Romanian master's for doctoral study elsewhere, without extra conversion steps.

For European students, this makes Romania a straightforward part of a wider European study plan: lower tuition and living costs than Western Europe, a growing range of English-taught programs, and a degree structure that lines up with what you already know from home.

Erasmus+ and student exchange

Romanian universities host and send large numbers of Erasmus+ students each year, so even if you enroll for a full degree elsewhere in Europe, a semester or year in Romania stays open through your home university's exchange agreements. Credits you earn during an exchange transfer back through the same ECTS system used for full-degree study.