Student mobility generates wide-ranging educational, intercultural, institutional, and economic benefits, yet the short-term economic footprint of credit mobility remains comparatively underexplored. While extensive research—particularly in market-driven higher education systems—has documented the economic contributions of international degree-seeking students, far fewer analyses address the impacts of short-term exchanges such as those supported by Erasmus+, despite their scale and growing importance in European policy.  

Emerging evidence shows that Erasmus+ students contribute meaningfully to local economies through consumption, travel, and longer-term destination loyalty, but the reciprocal nature of Erasmus+ flows requires a net perspective that considers both host-country gains and sending-country opportunity costs. Limited data, methodological constraints, and scarce cross-country studies mean that the distribution, magnitude, and structure of these effects remain insufficiently understood—even as EU ambitions for mobility expand under Europe on the Move and the Union of Skills.  

To help fill this gap, the Academic Cooperation Association (ACA), together with Erasmus+ National Agencies in Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Portugal and Serbia, conducted a joint study to quantify the short-term economic effects of Erasmus+ KA131 student mobility and examine its alignment with national development priorities.  

The study develops and applies a harmonised analytical framework across five diverse national contexts, offering new comparative evidence on an under-researched but increasingly relevant dimension of European student mobility. It focuses on intra-European student mobility funded under the Erasmus+ KA131 2022 call, covering study periods and traineeships of 5–360 days implemented between the academic years 2021/22 and 2023/24. 

Read the study here. 

Country factsheets: Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Portugal, Serbia.