Italy ranks second‑to‑last in the EU for tertiary‑educated young people, 13.7 points below the European average

Brussels – Over the past 20 years, the proportion of young people who have completed tertiary education has risen by more than 17.6 percentage points in the EU. According to Eurostat estimates, in 2005, only 27.2 per cent of European citizens aged between 25 and 34 had completed tertiary education. By 2025, this proportion had risen to 44.8 per cent, approaching half of the European population. This result is in line with the target set by the European strategic framework for education, which aimed to increase the proportion of young people with a tertiary education qualification to at least 45 per cent by 2030.

 The positive news is that all European countries have seen an increase in the proportion of young people with a tertiary education, albeit with significant differences. The greatest progress was made by Malta, with an increase of 29.9 percentage points, Luxembourg (+28.0 percentage points) and Ireland (+25.9 percentage points). The smallest increases were recorded in Finland (+0.7 percentage points), which was already at a high level in 2005 and will reach 37.5 per cent by 2025, Romania (+9.5 percentage points), which will reach 23.0 per cent, and Estonia (+11.2 percentage points), which will reach 44.3 per cent.

Italy, on the other hand, remains second-to-last in Europe in the share of young people with tertiary education, well below the EU average. Between 2005 and 2025, this proportion increased by 14.9 percentage points, but it still only reached 31.1 per cent of the population aged 25 to 34. Hungary exceeds the Italian figure, albeit only slightly, with a rate 1.5 percentage points higher. At the top of the rankings are Ireland, where 66.8 per cent of young people completed a tertiary education programme, followed by Luxembourg (65.0 per cent), and Lithuania (60.8 per cent).