Greece trails both the eurozone and EU-27 averages in the share of young people with university degrees, according to the latest Eurostat data, with 42.8% of Greeks aged 25 to 34 holding a tertiary education qualification in 2025. That places Greece 19th among EU countries, tied with Slovenia and on a par with other Balkan countries such as Croatia (42.0%) and Bulgaria (41.2%), though still ahead of Serbia (37.1%). Turkey, notably, scores higher than Greece at 44.8%.
Across the EU as a whole, the share of 25- to 34-year-olds who have completed tertiary education has risen steadily, from 27.2% in 2005 to 44.8% in 2025 — an increase of 17.6 percentage points. That puts the bloc on track to meet its 2030 target, set under the European Education Area strategic framework, of raising the tertiary attainment rate to at least 45%.
While attainment rose for both men and women, significantly more women (50.5%) than men (39.3%) held a tertiary degree in 2025. The gap was also pronounced by degree of urbanization: more than half (55.0%) of 25- to 34-year-olds living in cities held a tertiary qualification, compared with 38.4% in towns and suburbs and 32.9% in rural areas.
Tertiary attainment rose in every EU country between 2005 and 2025. The largest increases were recorded in Malta (+29.9 percentage points), Luxembourg (+28.0 points) and Ireland (+25.9 points), while the smallest gains came in Finland (+0.7 points), Romania (+9.5 points) and Estonia (+11.2 points).
