Tertiary graduates per thousand inhabitants
- Eurostat dataset
- educ_uoe_grad04
- Reference period
- 2024
- Unit of measure
- graduates per 1 000 inhabitants
Key estimates
- EU aggregate (2024): 23.0 graduates per 1 000 inhabitants.
- Highest value: Ireland at 39.8 graduates per 1 000 inhabitants; lowest: Luxembourg at 5.60 graduates per 1 000 inhabitants.
- Cross-country mean 19.6 graduates per 1 000 inhabitants, standard deviation 6.83, coefficient of variation 34.8% across 34 reporting countries.
- Aggregate change 2013→2024: +26.4% on a constant panel of 28 countries.
How fast is Europe producing new graduates? Eurostat dataset educ_uoe_grad04 reports tertiary graduates per thousand inhabitants for 34 reporting countries, with 2024 as the most recent period carrying broad coverage. The European aggregate stands at 23.0 graduates per 1 000 inhabitants. Graduation flows, unlike attainment stocks, respond to policy within a single cohort.
The five highest values in 2024 are recorded by Ireland (39.8), Finland (32.9), France (28.0), Denmark (26.5), Switzerland (25.6), all expressed in graduates per 1 000 inhabitants. At the opposite end of the distribution sit Luxembourg (5.60), Montenegro (9.40), Malta (9.70), North Macedonia (10.5), Cyprus (12.0). The ratio between the highest and the lowest observation is 7.11, while the median country reports 18.9 graduates per 1 000 inhabitants against a mean of 19.6 graduates per 1 000 inhabitants.
Dispersion is moderate: the standard deviation across countries is 6.83 graduates per 1 000 inhabitants, giving a coefficient of variation of 34.8%. The mean sits above the median, which indicates that the distribution is pulled by the upper tail rather than being symmetric. Any European average quoted for this indicator therefore describes a synthetic country that few Member States resemble.
Between 2013 and 2024 the summed value across the 28 countries reporting in both periods moved by +26.4%. The largest relative increases are observed in Ireland (+87.7%), Cyprus (+81.8%), Italy (+55.9%); the largest decreases, or the smallest increases, in Malta (-38.6%), Lithuania (-23.1%), Slovakia (-22.8%). Because the panel is held constant, this change is not an artefact of countries entering or leaving the sample.
Higher values are the policy-preferred direction for this indicator, so the countries listed at the bottom of the distribution mark the effective size of the European gap: closing it to the level of the fifth-ranked country would require the lowest performer to move by 20.0 graduates per 1 000 inhabitants. The estimates above are reproducible: the dataset identifier, filter dimensions and reference period are stated in the methodological note, and the series can be re-downloaded from the Eurostat dissemination API at any time.
Methodological note
Source: Eurostat, dataset educ_uoe_grad04 ('Graduates in tertiary education, in science, math., computing, engineering, manufacturing, construction, by sex - per 1000 of population aged 20-29'), extracted from the Eurostat dissemination API (JSON-stat 2.0) on the dataset update of 2026-07-17. Filter dimensions: unit=P_THAB; isced11=ED5-8; sex=T. Unit of measure: graduates per 1 000 inhabitants. Reference period: 2024. Geographic perimeter: national reporting units with two-character geo codes (34 countries with a non-missing observation); European and euro-area aggregates are excluded from the cross-country statistics and reported separately. Descriptive statistics (mean, median, population standard deviation, coefficient of variation) are computed unweighted over reporting countries. Change over time is computed on a constant panel: only countries with a non-missing observation in both the base and the reference period enter the calculation, which removes composition effects but may differ from the officially published aggregate. No imputation, seasonal adjustment or re-scaling has been applied beyond what Eurostat performs at source. Flagged provisional and estimated observations are retained as published.
Source data
The underlying series can be inspected and re-downloaded from the Eurostat data browser.