Share of population aged 15-64 with tertiary educational attainment in EU Countries

29 comments
  1. I’m ashamed of Italy, also I’m part of that graduated minority and it’s maybe even harder some times to find a job than non graduated people…

  2. Curious as to why they use 15 as the starting age, OECD uses 25-64 for their data which in my opinion works better as it actually waits until people are old enough to have finished uni.

  3. A better title would be “Share of population aged 15-64 that are university graduates in Europe 2020”, which is what [the source](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1084737/eu-28-adults-with-tertiary-education-attainment/) also calls the underlying study.

    Tertiary education might include trade schools/vocational education, while “higher education” is used exclusively for university degrees.

    All according to the ultimate source of truth, [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertiary_education).

  4. These statistics tend to be very misleading, since different coutries have different education systems.

    Many jobs which require tertiary education in one country might require a different form of vocatinal training in another with no worse outcome.

  5. Not in the least.

    Continental countries like Germany/Holland have always had a greater emphasis on apprenticeships etc. Outside of the building trades, it’s not really a done thing here.

    Though “Tertiary education” seems to be loosely defined.
    Level 5 nail technicians get thrown into that lot.

  6. Thank you for this terrible visualization. The constant color scale and the tiny numbers with bad contrast really help at not conveying information.

  7. I remember being told in school that if I dont go to college my life is over, every door of opportunity will shut and that I’ll die because this thing where if you dont go to college, it gets you and it just kills, kills, kills!

  8. It’s possible Ireland has a high rate of education attainment due to the SUSI scheme which basically pays all of your tuition if you’re poor enough.

  9. 15 is *way* too low a starting number, all it’s doing is bringing all the percentages down by counting people that are still finishing secondary education.

  10. It is not a super meaningful statistic unfortunately. Firstly, it does not take into account the quality of the universities and other tertiary education institutions. Secondly, it does not take into account the vocational education systems, which are excellent in Germany for example. Thirdly, it does not consider what people actually study at university level. Fourthly, it is very much possible to acquire high level of marketable skills through lifelong learning using online courses and the like nowadays. Taking all of this into account, I wouldn’t expect it to have a strong relationship with the economic success of a country, and the map also does not show a meaningful relationship between those two.

  11. There is a clichee sentence I’ve heard like hundred times : “…..but everybody cannot have a university degree. There have to be people who work with their hands as well.”

    Next time I hear this blu**it I will show them this map…. I am Czech

Leave a Reply