The evolution and challenges for real estate education in the Western Region of Romania

In the last four years, the Romanian economy has entered very fast into international economic market and became, thanks to more permissive policies to investors, a favorite destination of foreign money. The lack of experience in properly using of that large amount of money transformed Romania in 2005 - 2008 periods in a place of very favorable real estate speculations. Properties changed owners very quickly, each relying on a 100% profit over the next transaction. At the present moment, the effects of the crisis manifest itself in rapid failure of all economic sectors. Most seriously affected is real estate domain, with all its components. Devaluation of real estate assets vary between 20% and 80% especially in the land transactions area. Also, the market dropped because of reducing rents by 25% for commercial streets with over 30% in shopping centers and at least 20% for office rents. Given these developments, the real estate education in Romania and especially in the western region of the country has followed an increasing trend during 2005 to 2008. Starting with the 2009/2010 academic year, the crisis in the real estate market affects the area of education through two significant effects: a stagnation in number of students attracted by the masters of the domain and the decline in the demand for graduates of the real estate profile both in the transactions and in the valuation market. However, these effects in academic sector could be considered only partially related with economic evolution, the decreasing of the real estate sector being more significant than the demand for educational programs in this area. This situation is due both to the psychological expectations regarding the future economic growth and to the increasing number of persons in Romania that choose to follow postgraduate and life-long learning studies. The Faculty of Economics and Business Administration from West University of Timisoara register a relative constant number of students in real estate area despite of unfavorable economic developments. The teaching staff is working to adapt curricula and the educational offer in the spirit of a strong connection to the European market requirements. The education system is trying to attract more students and teaching staff from other countries and, in the same time, a mandatory issue is to obtain accreditation of courses for recognition in the European Union. In this regard, is necessary to attract a large volume of European funds to support activities in the field. The purpose of our study is to reveal the structural framework of the master program which is implemented in the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, the most important institution in West Region which offers such type of postgraduate studies. The analysis is focused on the structure of curricula (general, complementary and specialty courses), the requested and obtained accreditations, the structure of demand (types of graduated studies of the candidates, their professional expectations and intentions) and the structure of alumni.