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This paper inquires about the conditions that enable the rise of new applied undergraduate fields in American universities and colleges. After identifying high-growth fields since 1950, the paper traces their professional development from an embryonic stage until universities and colleges started offering bachelor’s degrees in those fields. The experiences of the six fields of this study show that although pressures for academic differentiation were evident, governmental intervention was ultimately crucial. Qualitative evidence indicates that the independence of a new field hinges on the interaction of four factors: societal pressures, state intervention, academic resourcefulness of the field, and professional institutional processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A major element in the creation of the European area of higher education is the adoption of a common structure of degrees, implying in several countries the reduction of the duration of the first degree to 3 years, which is a controversial change. Cardoso et al. (CESifo Econ Stud 54(2): 229–247, ) have analyzed student confidence in the curricula change, quantifying its impact on students’ first choices of academic programs. This paper goes two steps further. First, it concentrates on a variable that better translates total demand for an academic program, namely the total number of students who place the program among their six revealed preferences, instead of just the first option; and, second, an econometric model that better fits the data is estimated. Results confirm a positive impact of the Bologna process on the demand for programs, which varies with program size and across fields of study. Our results complement those in Cardoso et al. (), as they uncover that being a program leader, i.e. the only institution in the country that restructured a given program, was associated with higher demand by prospective students, which nevertheless stemmed from their “second best" options and not from their first choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]