2025, a year of austerity in Romanian education. How inequalities are amplified by repeating old mistakes

Article by Cristian Ghingheș

For education in Romania, 2025 was a year of brutal change, in which promises of reform were realized through a package of harsh austerity measures adopted to reduce the budget deficit.

Under the pretext of fiscal responsibility, the state cut scholarships for hundreds of thousands of students, merged over 500 schools, increased class sizes, increased teachers' working hours, and restricted free transportation. What is presented as efficiency is, in fact, a policy that hits the most vulnerable children, repeating the mistakes of the past decade. The figures speak for themselves: over 345,500 students lost their scholarships in the first two months of the 2025-2026 school year, with approximately 440,000 children completely outside the education system and the highest early school leaving rate in the European Union – 16.8%, compared to the average of 9.4%^[1] . At the same time, the cost of education for parents has tripled in the last seven years, and 87% of poor families can no longer cover these expenses on their own. What does this situation say about the direction Romania is heading in, and what have we learned from past mistakes?

All these austerity measures come in the context of an already chronically underfunded system. In 2023, Romania allocated only 3.4% of its GDP to education, well below the European Union average of around 4.6-4.8% of GDP, and far from the 6% target set for years in legislation and public policy documents. In terms of spending per student, Romania remains among the countries that invest the least in each child, which translates into less money for infrastructure, educational resources, teacher training, and support for vulnerable students. In other words, the austerity measures of 2025 do not fix a strong system, but strike at one that is already fragile.

Reform disguised as austerity

Under the pretext of aligning with European standards and stabilizing public finances, as presented in Parliament where it was adopted by assumption of responsibility, without much debate, the Bolojan Government's Package I (Law 141/2025) fundamentally changed the structure of education. Firstly, the increase in teaching hours by 2-4 hours per week over a period of five years was presented as necessary, but in reality it means overloading teachers who already teach crowded classes, plus lower salaries and fewer jobs for teachers, beyond the acrobatics in the speeches of former minister Daniel David, which were criticized by civil society. Also, increasing class sizes to 34 students in high school has the direct effect of reducing individualized attention and real support for students with difficulties, a measure that is totally at odds with expert recommendations and current international trends.

The most painful measure is the drastic restructuring of the scholarship system, one of the most discussed topics in the first weeks of the new government. 153,971 students lost their resilience scholarships, nearly 3,000 students lost their performance scholarships, and merit scholarships were capped at 15% of the class, down from 30%, according to an analysis by EduPedu^[2] based on data provided by the Ministry of Education. While the state talks about equality and merit, the message conveyed to society through the measures adopted is completely opposite: poor children and those who excel are no longer a priority. This comes after the state promised and adopted a generous scholarship system in 2023, following debates within the Educated Romania project and repeated pressure from student organizations in recent years. There have also been problems this year with school transportation, one of the major causes of school dropouts, due to late decisions by county councils and a lack of monitoring by the Ministry of Education. In fact, transportation between localities is only reimbursed for those who cannot attend school in their place of residence.

Paradoxically, while the state is cutting students' social rights, scandals are emerging involving irregularities in the purchase of electric minibuses and complaints to the European Public Prosecutor's Office regarding possible abuses in the management of European funds earmarked for education. When scholarships for poor children are cut, but at the same time tens of millions of euros are wasted on suspicious and questionable purchases, the feeling of inequality is bound to be huge. Student associations have repeatedly pointed out that the purchase of school minibuses is not the best solution for ensuring student transportation and that the solution lies in providing an accessible and predictable county transportation program that ensures routes between localities that both students and other social groups who need this public service can rely on. 

In contrast, the national "Healthy Meals" program has been expanded, one of the few positive signs in terms of social policies for children. Even so, the number of beneficiaries has been capped at 500,000 (compared to the 1 million in the approved program), and implementation remains uneven. In some communities, the program works, while in others, due to tenders, infrastructure, or staff shortages, hot meals remain just a promise. 

Painful lessons from austerity that we have learned nothing from

What makes the 2025 measures all the more frustrating is that Romania has already gone through an experience of austerity, including in education, between 2010 and 2013, under the Băsescu regime, with devastating long-term results. At that time, the abolition of vocational schools, staff cuts, and rapid restructuring led to a doubling of the dropout rate in vocational education and the loss of over 700,000 students from the system. An entire generation was deprived of access to trades and professional qualifications, fueling the massive migration that continues today and has led to the chronic shortage of skilled labor that we are experiencing in many economic sectors.

In 2024, 16.8% of young Romanians aged 18-24 had left the education system, compared to the EU average of 9.4%, and regional disparities are stark: the South-East region has 26%, South-Muntenia 19%, the Centre 21%, while Bucharest has only 3%^[3] , according to the FES Social Monitor. Over 440,000 children aged 7-17 are completely outside the education system, representing 18.7% of the population in this age group, eight times more than the OECD average, according to a report by the Save the Children organization^[4] .

Even though education should be free and the state should finance this free education, public education is still expensive for parents. The average annual cost that parents bear for a child has reached almost 10,000 lei, triple that of 2018, with variations from 6,800 lei for primary education to about 12,000 lei for high school^[5] . And that's without tutoring or afterschool, transportation, and other hidden or informal expenses. Thus, according to Save the Children, 87% of poor families cannot cover these costs on their own, which makes education, we say this with regret, a luxury for many families in Romania. 

Annually, approximately 23,000 students drop out of school, generating an economic cost of 2.3 billion euros per year, equivalent to 0.77% of GDP. These figures may seem like mere statistics, but they actually represent the lives of children condemned to poverty and exclusion because the state has chosen to sacrifice education year after year, and even more so in 2025.

The discussion about austerity is, in short, about a broken social contract. The state promised that, no matter how poor a family is, children would have a real chance through education, but it did not keep its promise. In 2025, this contract was knowingly broken. And if there is one thing worth remembering at the end of the day for those affected by these austerity decisions, it is that they were not a miscalculation, but a choice, a public policy decision.

Last place in the EU for investment in research

A depressing indicator for education and the country's economic future is that Romania ranks last in the European Union in terms of investment in research and development (R&D)^[6] , one of the areas that should be the engine of development and innovation in the country. R&D expenditure is only 0.46% of GDP, compared to the EU average of 2.26%, and Romania is the only EU country that has not allocated any money for research in education and culture in 2024. With only 50,579 researchers for 19 million inhabitants, Romania cannot produce the innovation needed to escape the trap of a low-tech economy with low added value.

Without modern laboratories, competitive grants for young researchers, or university innovation, Romanian graduates are forced to go abroad if they want careers in research. Thus, in the long term, there is a danger that the economy will remain stuck in low value-added areas, where little or outdated technology is used, and production does not bring high profits or stimulate innovation. Furthermore, relatively low wages fuel migration and deprive children in rural and small urban areas of concrete prospects in life, including the motivation to stay in school. 

School in the era of complaints and lawsuits, not consultation

More and more students and parents are ending up defending their rights in court in an attempt to correct abusive or arbitrary decisions by schools, inspectorates, and central authorities. The case of fifth-grade students summoned to return their scholarships but saved by the Bucharest Court, or that of a student forced to pay thousands of euros for a simple transfer, shows how easily the rights of beneficiaries can be trampled on and how important judicial control is. Similarly, the decision to reinstate a student at the Vasile Lascăr Police Academy and award him damages after an abusive expulsion shows that even militarized systems are not immune to internal abuses.

The same applies to cases in military schools, where the Ministry of Defense, through its military education structures, sues students and parents to recover maintenance costs based on a 1971 decree, even though we are talking about teenagers who have realized that they can no longer continue their military career or that they no longer want to. The amounts, sometimes in the tens of thousands of lei, are absurd in a context where the same society asks young people to be ready to sacrifice themselves in a climate of war at the border, but punishes them financially if they change their minds or cannot cope^[7] .

On the other hand, there are also powerful symbolic victories at the local level. A student in Constanța managed, practically on his own, to block in court the decision of the Constanța County School Inspectorate to close his ninth-grade class on the grounds that there were "too few students," forcing the authorities to keep the class open. His story, widely reported in the press, shows how the cold logic of mergers can be tempered when someone has the courage to say no and fight to the end in court.

On the social front, trade unions and student and parent organizations called for boycotts, protests, and petitions in 2025 against scholarship cuts and school mergers, and complaints to the Ombudsman, including for discrimination against medal-winning students, show that, in the absence of real consultation with all educational stakeholders, education is increasingly becoming a field of civic and legal mobilization and that monitoring and activism in education are needed at all levels of decision-making.

The first protests took place in the summer, when student organizations demonstrated in front of the Ministry of Education against scholarship cuts, accusing the government of violating the principle of equal opportunity. In the fall, with the start of the 2025-2026 school year, education unions organized protests and rallies in major cities, including Bucharest, against school mergers, increased teaching loads, and overcrowded classrooms. At the same time, public petitions and complaints were sent to the Ombudsman, signed by students, parents, and teachers, complaining about the discriminatory and non-transparent nature of the measures. Although the demands did not lead to the withdrawal of the austerity package, they increased public pressure and made education a central issue in the contestation of the government's measures in 2025. 

Austerity rhymes perfectly with inequality

In 2025, the state consciously chose to make savings exactly where it hurts most in the long term, namely children and education. What is unacceptable is not only the harshness of the measures, but their fundamental inconsistency. Scholarships for hundreds of thousands of students are being cut, but money is being wasted on questionable purchases. Education is declared a European priority, but Romania remains at the bottom of the EU in terms of investment in education and research. Equal opportunities and merit are invoked, but it is precisely poor children and those with good results who are being hit. When you cut support for students knowing that you already have the highest dropout rates in the EU and that hundreds of thousands of children do not even enter the system, it is downright cynical to claim that this is a matter of efficiency or reform. It is simply a political decision based on accounting principles, which essentially says that the bill for budgetary imbalances must be paid by the youngest and most vulnerable, not by those who caused the deficit.

What the architects of these measures cannot claim, however, is that they did not know where such measures would lead. Romania has already undergone a round of austerity in education, in which cuts and closures have taken hundreds of thousands of students out of school and compromised an entire generation of young people left without qualifications. There is public data showing the costs of school dropouts to the economy, how much the country loses in terms of GDP, taxes, and productivity because of every child who leaves the system too early. The Bolojan government packaged everything as temporary measures necessary for fiscal stabilization, and former minister Daniel David sought increasingly outrageous formulas to justify the cuts. But for a child who drops out of school now, for a teenager who makes health or life decisions based on 30-second clips, for a young researcher who packs his bags and leaves, there is no such thing as temporary. The damage is permanent. The lessons from the austerity of the Băsescu regime show that every leu saved from scholarships and support for schools comes back multiplied in human capital losses, poverty, crime, and migration of skilled people. And yet, in 2025, the same recipe was chosen, cutting from the bottom up, from the basic services of society, and then pretending to be surprised that Romania remains stuck in a vicious circle of poverty and exodus.

If not 6% of GDP for education, then at least something in that direction

If we want to break out of this vicious circle of austerity and improvisation, we must start from the basic idea that education and health are not piggy banks from which you can take money at any time. Therefore, 2026 must not begin with the dictum that we must take money from education and health to put it into defense, as recently expressed by the highest authority in the state. If there is any remnant of left-wing thinking in the current coalition, this should be a red line that cannot be crossed.

Any plan, reform, efficiency measure, package, etc. must begin with a simple question: does this harm vulnerable children's access to education? If so, the measure fails. Specifically, there needs to be a return to truly free transportation for all students who study in another locality, the protection of scholarships, especially social ones, the expansion of the hot meal program, but also a halt to the increase in standards or the burdening of teachers who already have low salaries, capped and with no prospects for improvement in the coming years, despite the commitments made by politicians following the trade union movements of recent years.

A second essential step is to ensure a minimum guaranteed package for every child: transport, meals, school supplies. If we do not invest now, we will pay more later through school dropouts, poverty, and social tensions. The Pre-University Education Law must also be amended to allow local authorities that are willing and able to do so to supplement the budget for various education expenses, including scholarships or incentives for teachers.

On another level, equally important is access to clear public data on scholarships, commuting, school mergers, school resources, and the impact of each decision, things that we do not see measured at the level of the Ministry of Education. Without this information, neither the state can make responsible decisions nor can society react. That is why it is essential to support independent civic organizations that constantly monitor what is happening in education, analyze data, and explain real developments in the system to the public, and here I believe that the private sector can play a more active role.

Romania should not be condemned to poverty and exodus, but if we normalise the idea that we can cut education at any time and if we continue to make decisions that are not supported by data, without transparency and without consulting educational stakeholders, that is exactly where we will end up.

^[1]https://romania.fes.de/ro/e/abandonul-scolar-ramane-o-problema-majora-in-romania-regiunile-sud-est-sud-muntenia-si-centru-cele-mai-afectate.html 

^[2]https://www.edupedu.ro/exclusiv-numarul-burselor-de-merit-a-scazut-cu-peste-40-in-primele-doua-luni-ale-acestui-an-scolar-fata-de-aceeasi-perioada-a-anului-trecut-iar-cel-al-burselor-sociale-cu-aproape-9-pixul-ministrul/ 

^[3]https://romania.fes.de/ro/e/abandonul-scolar-ramane-o-problema-majora-in-romania-regiunile-sud-est-sud-muntenia-si-centru-cele-mai-afectate.html 

^[4]https://www.salvaticopiii.ro/sites/ro/files/2025-09/radiografia-inceputului-de-an-scolar.pdf 

^[5]https://www.salvaticopiii.ro/sites/ro/files/2025-09/radiografia-inceputului-de-an-scolar.pdf 

^[6]https://romania.fes.de/ro/e/romania-are-cea-mai-mica-alocare-bugetara-pentru-activitatile-de-cercetare-dezvoltare-si-cea-mai-mica-rata-a-ocuparii-in-sectorul-cercetare-comparativ-cu-statele-ue.html 

^[7]https://www.scoala9.ro/cat-te-costa-sa-nu-fii-militar/2346 

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES).

About the author:

Cristian Ghingheș is a program director at the Romanian Academic Society (SAR), coordinating projects in the fields of public policy, governance, and transparency. He is also a member of the Quartet Institute, where he contributes to research on urban mobility and environmental policies. A graduate and postgraduate student in Public Administration, he has worked in both research and advocacy, as well as in local public administration, where he was deputy mayor of Bacău.