This study analyzes the social and historical reasons for higher education reforms in Central and East European universities after the collapse of communist regimes, in order to answer the central question of this study: To what extent were the national features eliminated in Central and Eastern Europe by the implementation of the 3-5-8 model and by international competition? It identifies key moments in the unfolding of reforms in the higher education system and offers explanations for its current situation. The way that education policies were triggered by the Bologna process and the implementation of new higher education structures are explained by a transnational comparative approach, that is, to an exogenous factor (Hassenteufel 2005), namely the decisions taken at the European level starting in 1999 (the year the Bologna Declaration was signed), when the reform was first planned. This process is illustrated using examples from the social-political and academic context of 10 Central and East European countries (Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia), which shared a fifty-year ideological past and entered a period of important transformation after 1990. (Contains 1 note.)