Lifelong learning now plays a key role labour market policies within the EU. Against a background of increasing rates of highly educated people and changes in graduate labour markets, universities have started to become involved in adult learning and active labour market policies. The article presents the results of 21 nonrepresentative case studies of university adult learning programmes from seven EUcountries with particular focus on people in mid-life, who are becoming more and more socially vulnerable. One of the main features of the case studies was the social effectiveness of university adult learning programmes in terms of access to jobs and quality of work/life. The results of the case studies together with a review of the results of other European lifelong learning projects made it possible to draw up a scheme of the core dimensions of socially effective university adult learning.