This article aims to contribute to the debate on major changes in tert
iary education in Europe over the last 15 years by focusing on mass hi
gher education in Greece and the place of the social sciences in it. I
t examines the main objectives and effects of the significant educatio
nal reform, introduced by the Panhellenic Socialist Party in the early
1980s, and of the subsequent amendments to it, with an emphasis on ex
cessive state control over higher education, and the statist/clienteli
stic mode in which graduate markets function in Greek society. These c
haracteristics account for many of the rigidities in the structure of
the social sciences and put severe limits on the ability of the Greek
higher education system to respond to the challenges of European compe
tition in education and research.