Increasing mobility of Swiss graduates

Four in ten graduates attended a college of higher education outside their canton of residence

In Switzerland, students at colleges of higher education are in many cases prepared to travel: Four in ten graduates completed a study programme outside their canton of residence. For two-thirds of them, the study programme was not offered in their canton of residence. After graduation, one person in ten was living in a different canton to the one prior to the study programme and one in five was working outside their canton of residence. This is shown by new analyses of 2016-2020 graduates from colleges of higher education, conducted by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO).

Of those who graduated, 41% attended their course of training outside the canton where they lived before starting their training. One of the reasons was lack of supply: 62% of people who studied in another canton did so because it was not possible to attend their chosen course of training in their canton of residence. Graduates who placed a particularly high value on the good reputation of the training institution, an attractive time organization model, and specific, practice-driven courses opted
relatively often for training in another canton. Another important reason for school choice was the recommendation by friends and acquaintances

Preference for local training offerings

Graduate schools usually offer their courses centrally at a few locations: in German-speaking Switzerland, they do so mainly in the cantons of Zurich, Bern, Lucerne and St. Gallen, and in French-speaking Switzerland in the canton of Vaud. As a result, the frequency with which study cycles outside their own canton are chosen varies depending on the canton of origin. In fact, among the graduates, those from the cantons of Vaud and Zurich who attended their course of study outside their canton were only 15 and 16 percent, respectively. In contrast, those from the canton of Fribourg who made this choice were 91%. Ticino, on the other hand, with 6 percent, was the canton with the smallest share of people who graduated from a higher specialized school outside their canton.

Low educational mobility across language boundaries

Compared to choosing to attend a higher specialized school outside the canton of residence, the choice to attend a course of training in another language region is much rarer, with a share of less than 2 percent. Graduates from the Italian-speaking region, which includes Ticino and some municipalities in Graubünden, were the most likely to attend a course of training in another language region (7 percent), followed by their counterparts from French-speaking Switzerland (4 percent). As for graduates from German-speaking Switzerland, this share stood at only 0.8 percent. Of the graduates who opted for training in another language region, 46 percent said they did so because there was no corresponding course of training in their language region.

However, in the canton of Zurich, far more graduates work there than live there, and the same is true in the cantons of Bern, Basel-Stadt and Zug. Overall, 21 percent of graduates who did not change their canton of residence after completing their education were working outside that canton. Choosing to work in a canton other than one’s canton of residence is thus more common than moving to the canton of one’s place of work.

Cantonal differences in geographic mobility

Zurich and Bern, the largest cantons, record few changes of residence and less labor mobility across cantonal borders. Graduates from the French-speaking cantons of Geneva, Vaud and Jura as well as Italian-speakers from the canton of Ticino also move less often and commute to other cantons less frequently than average.

By contrast, the situation is different in the smaller and medium-sized cantons of German-speaking Switzerland: more than half of the graduates have moved or been employed in another canton.

Data sources

The report is based on analyses of graduation years 2016, 2018 and 2020 and was compiled using various data sources from the Federal Statistical Office. The basis for this report was the data from the final examination statistics and the data from the statistics of persons in training, summarized as part of the project “Longitudinal Analyses in Education” and supplemented with data from the employment outlook indicator.

Statistical Universe

The population analyzed includes people who graduated from colleges of higher education who were residents of Switzerland one year after graduation.

Source: FEDERAL OFFICE OF STATISTICS FSO