TOP 10 Countries by Tertiary Education Attainment (25–64, 2025)
Tertiary education has become a central marker of how prepared societies are for knowledge-intensive jobs. This ranking looks at the share of adults aged 25–64 who have completed tertiary education — typically university degrees, professional colleges or advanced vocational programmes — and how this share differs across generations.
What does “tertiary education attainment” mean in this ranking?
In OECD and World Bank statistics, tertiary education usually includes:
- Bachelor’s and master’s degrees, long-cycle university programmes.
- Short-cycle tertiary programmes (for example higher vocational colleges).
- Doctoral programmes and advanced research degrees.
The attainment rate answers a simple question: “What share of adults in a given age group has completed at least one tertiary programme?” It is therefore a stock measure, different from graduation rates, and reflects education policies and access over several decades.
Who leads the world in tertiary attainment among adults?
Using the latest official OECD 2024 values published in Education at a Glance 2025, the highest shares of adults aged 25–64 with tertiary education are concentrated in a group of high-income, knowledge-intensive economies.
The current OECD top tier places Canada (64.7%) first, followed by Ireland (57.5%), Korea (56.2%), Luxembourg (54.4%), the United Kingdom (53.8%) and Australia (53.1%). The next upper tier includes Sweden (51.8%), Israel (50.5%), Norway (50.4%) and Lithuania (47.7%).
Why look at younger and older generations separately?
A single attainment figure for all adults can hide important dynamics underneath. Breaking the data into younger and older cohorts helps to answer three key questions:
- Is the system still expanding? If 25–34-year-olds have much higher attainment than 55–64-year-olds, the country is in the middle of a strong higher-education expansion.
- Are older workers catching up? Lifelong learning and second-chance pathways can raise attainment in older cohorts over time.
- Is inequality shrinking or persisting? If gaps between cohorts are narrowing, access is becoming more equal; if not, privilege may still be reproducing itself.
The next section turns these ideas into numbers: Table 1 ranks the Top 10 countries by overall tertiary attainment among adults 25–64, while Table 2 contrasts younger and older generations in a set of illustrative countries.
Table 1. Share of adults 25–64 with tertiary education, Top 10 countries, 2025
Official OECD values for 2024, published in Education at a Glance 2025. The table reports the share of adults aged 25–64 who have completed tertiary education (ISCED levels 5–8).
| Rank | Country | Adults 25–64 with tertiary education, % |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Canada | 64.7% |
| 2 | Ireland | 57.5% |
| 3 | Korea | 56.2% |
| 4 | Luxembourg | 54.4% |
| 5 | United Kingdom | 53.8% |
| 6 | Australia | 53.1% |
| 7 | Sweden | 51.8% |
| 8 | Israel | 50.5% |
| 9 | Norway | 50.4% |
| 10 | Lithuania | 47.7% |
Interpretation. Canada is the clear outlier in the current OECD data, while the rest of the upper tier clusters in the low-50s to high-40s. That is still substantially above the OECD average of 41.2% for adults aged 25–64.
Table 2. Younger versus older adults with tertiary education, selected countries, 2024
Official OECD 2024 cohort values for countries whose current profiles clearly report both 25–34 and 55–64 attainment levels. The gap column shows the difference in percentage points between younger and older adults.
| Country | Ages 25–34 | Ages 55–64 | Gap (pp) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canada | 68.9% | 55.1% | 13.8 |
| Ireland | 66.2% | 41.8% | 24.4 |
| United Kingdom | 60.3% | 41.9% | 18.4 |
| Australia | 57.2% | 40.0% | 17.2 |
| Sweden | 56.0% | 38.1% | 17.9 |
| Norway | 59.0% | 36.1% | 22.9 |
Generational pattern. The gap between younger and older adults is still large, especially in Ireland and Norway. Canada stands out for combining a very high young-adult rate with an unusually high older-adult rate, which helps explain why it remains first overall.
Chart 1. Share of adults 25–64 with tertiary education, Top 10 countries, 2024
The bar chart below visualises the official OECD 2024 ranking shown in Table 1. Canada remains far ahead of the rest of the field, while the countries ranked from second to tenth form a much tighter upper tier.
Reading tip. The gap between first and tenth place is almost 17 percentage points. That is large enough to represent a very different long-run education structure across adult populations.
Chart 2. Younger versus older adults with tertiary education, selected countries, 2024
The second chart compares two real OECD cohort values rather than using a reconstructed time series. It places ages 25–34 and ages 55–64 side by side, making the generational attainment gap visible without introducing synthetic history.
Story in the data. The generational gap remains substantial even in leading countries. Canada is unusual because its older cohort is already highly educated, while Ireland and Norway show a much steeper rise from older to younger adults.
Data sources and methodology
- OECD, Education at a Glance 2025 , the main publication behind the current 2024 attainment snapshot.
- OECD, Education GPS , country profiles used here for the latest 25–64, 25–34 and 55–64 attainment values.
- OECD, Indicator Explorer , used for the current OECD average and cross-country comparison framework.
- ISCED 2011 definitions remain the basis for comparability across higher-education systems, covering short-cycle tertiary, bachelor's, master's and doctoral or equivalent levels.
