What percentage of Europeans aged 25 to 34 have a university degree?

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On this map we can see what share of young people in Europe have a university degree. We can see that in most areas, this is less than 50%. What stands out immediately, is that the percentage is far higher in the bigger cities in almost every country. Which does make sense. Usually there are more job opportunities for highly educated people in larger cities.

London is the area with the highest percentage of young people with a university degree. Followed by the Sostines region around Lithuania”s capital Vilnius (73.4%). Spain’s Basque country is also one of the highest in Europe, where 66% of young people have a university degree. Overall, Ireland, Luxembourg and Cyprus have one of the highest shares of young people with a university degree

Romania has the lowest share of young people with a university degree. Almost every area has a percentage below 25% and Romania even occupies the bottom 5 of Europe. Bucharest however, scores very well, with 50.5% of young people in Bucharest holding a university degree.

How does Eurostat define tertiary education in this dataset? Tertiary degrees are doctoral, master’s, bachelor’s or equivalent level degrees. Also included are so called short-cycle tertiary degrees (e.g., associate degree, university diploma and university certificate).