Master's degrees in Europe are the second cycle of the Bologna process, following on from undergraduate bachelor's degrees and preceding third cycle doctorates. Master's degrees typically take two years to complete, although the number of years varies between countries, and correspond to 60 – 120 ECTS credits. Within the European Higher Education Area, representing almost all countries in Europe, master's degrees are referenced to the Framework of Qualifications for the European Higher Education Area and national qualifications frameworks.
European Master's Market
Through the Bologna initiatives and support of the European Union, Europe is unifying and standardising especially the structure of their masters' programmes, making them more and more accessible to foreign students.
An often cited advantage of the European universities is an advantageous cost/quality ratio. In Europe, especially continental Europe, universities are heavily subsidized by their national governments. In Germany, Scandinavia or Eastern Europe for instance, most masters programmes have been traditionally totally free of charge. Recently, these governments are discussing and/or introducing tuition fees. E.g. Sweden started charging tuition for non-EU students in 2010 and Finland started charging non-EU/EEA students in 2017.
Austria
In Austria, one obtains a bachelor's degree after 3 years of study and a master's degree after 2 more years of study. This is true for both the "research-oriented university" sector as well as the "university of applied sciences" sector which was established in the 1990s.
Medicine and dentistry pose an exception; these studies are not divided into bachelor's and master's degree, but take 6 years to complete and the degree obtained is called "Dr. med." (However this is not an equivalent to other doctoral degrees, as one writes a "diploma thesis" and not a "doctoral thesis" or "dissertation".)
In addition to traditional master's degrees, Austrian universities also offer the Master of Advanced Studies which is a non-consecutive continuing education degree. MAS programs tend to be interdisciplinary and tend to be focused toward meeting the needs of professionals rather than academics.
Before the Bologna process, the traditional Austrian equivalent to the master's degree was the Diplomstudium, leading to the title Diplom-Ingenieur (female title: Diplom-Ingenieurin)(Abbreviation: "Dipl.-Ing." or "DI") in engineering or Magister (female: Magistra)(Abbreviation: "Mag.") in almost every discipline. The Diplomstudium took about 4–6 years of study.
Belgium
In Belgium, possessing a master's degree means that one has completed a higher education (usually university or college) programme of 4 or 5 years. Before the Bologna process most university degrees required 4 years of studies (leading to a licence), but some programmes required 5 years of study. An example in the field of education in business/management was the 5-year programme of "Handelsingenieur" (Dutch) or "Ingénieur de Gestion" (French) (English: "Commercial Engineer") with an important amount of mathematics and sciences, and which corresponds to an M.Sc. in Management. This degree co-existed with a graduate degree in business economics (4 years) named "Licentiaat in toegepaste economische wetenschappen" (Dutch) or "Licence en sciences économiques appliquées" (French) (English: "Licence in applied economics").
Denmark
In Denmark, a Master's degree is awarded. The MA and MSc degrees and other master's degrees are distinguished. The MA and MSc.degrees are similar to a traditional Master's Programme, which are obtained by completing a higher education with a typical duration of five years on an accredited Danish university. Other master's degrees can be taken on an accredited Danish university, but these are made as adult (part-time) education such as the Master of IT (abbreviated M. IT) degree.
A large number of subdivisions exist, usually designating the area of education (e.g. cand.theol., cand.arch. and cand.jur.), though some have more vague definitions (cand.mag., cand.scient., cand.polyt., and cand.scient.techn., each of which encompass broad, overlapping areas of science).
The Bologna process has widely prompted master's degree education to consist of either 120 ECTS or 180 ECTS credit cycles, where one academic year corresponds to 60 ECTS-credits that are equivalent to 1,500–1,800 hours of study. In most cases, these will take 2 to 3 years respectively to complete.