Last April, Eurostat published data showing that in 2018, the threshold target line of 40% of the age group having completed higher education in Europe. Women do significantly better than men (45,8% women against 35,7 for men), but the overall average is now 40,7% of the population aged 30-34 having completed tertiary education. In 2002, this proportion was still below 25%.
Of the Aurora countries, Sweden is the only one over 50%. The Netherlands, the UK, Belgium, and France are above 45%. Spain is just over 40% while Germany only around 35% – well below the EU average, which may in part be due to their excellent Dual Learning system.
In the same 16 years, the proportion of early leavers of education & training decreased from about 17% to 10,6%.
