This article provides evidence about differences in the recent tertiary education expansion in Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. Focusing on these differences, we have examined private returns to tertiary education acquired before and after the tertiary education expansion. We compare these returns as follows: Austria with Germany and then the Czech Republic with Poland and Slovakia. Estimating private returns to education by applying the Mincerian (Mincer, 1974) approach on European Union Survey on Income and Living Conditions micro data (EU-SILC, n.d.), we show the differences that arise concerning the evaluation of tertiary education in the labour markets of these countries. While in Austria and Germany a more recent tertiary education is related to higher private returns, this is not the case in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia where a declining trend towards private returns in more recent tertiary education is observable.