The educational system of the twenty-first century is student-centered. Students are the generation that has seen firsthand the enormous expansion of online media represented by the Internet, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence, which has increased the relevance of digital competence in higher education. This is because they are the ones who have grown up with the rapid development of computer networks and who have firsthand knowledge of those technologies. Additionally, the epidemic has raised public awareness of the need of for digital literacy. The increasing digitalization and modernization of every area of our lives to satisfy the needs of modern education is creating new chances for both teaching and learning. The world over, more and more technology is being used to improve training and education, which eliminates the need to take into account regional factors that are associated with traditional education. More and more educational establishments are using technology to improve instruction. The paper’s primary objective is to pinpoint the internet-related and digitalization-related variables that have an impact on higher education in European nations using the following indicators: patent applications, resident population, high-tech exports, research and development spending, and school enrollment at the tertiary level (% gross). Due to data availability, the sample includes 40 nations over the period 1996-2020. The World Bank database is the source of the information. Panel-data VAR and panel Granger causality were the methodologies we used. Our findings suggested that the Internet and digitalization considerably impact higher education because high-technology exports represent both the internet and digitalization.