The number of young adults completing tertiary education across member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has reached an all-time high, but growth rates have stalled since the start of the decade.
The Education at a Glance 2025?, published on 9 September, finds that 48 per cent of 25-34 year-olds?have completed tertiary education?across the OECD as a whole, up from 27 per cent in 2000.
It finds that the UK has one of the highest levels of tertiary attainment among member nations – 12 percentage points above the OECD average with a record 60 per cent of young adults holding tertiary qualifications.?
Completion rates in the UK are also well above international norms. Two-thirds of undergraduates finish on time, compared with?only 43 per cent across the OECD.
After three extra years, 84 per cent of UK entrants have graduated, against a 70 per cent OECD average. Some 17 per cent of 25-34-year-olds hold a master’s or equivalent degree, which is similar to the OECD average of 16 per cent. This represents an increase since 2019, when the share was 14 per cent.
But the OECD cautions that growth in attainment has slowed since 2021.
The UK also shows sharp inequalities: 76 per cent of young adults with a tertiary-educated parent complete tertiary education themselves, compared with only 37 per cent of those whose parents left school without upper-secondary qualifications.
And outcomes for those without qualifications are deteriorating. Young adults in the UK who do not finish upper-secondary school now earn 43 per cent less than their peers who do – the biggest gap in the OECD.
Their employment rate has fallen from 68 per cent in 2019 to 62 per cent in 2024, with the steepest decline among men.
The UK also remains heavily reliant on international students. They now account for 23 per cent of the tertiary student population – nearly 749,000 in 2023 – far above the OECD average of 7 per cent and second only to the United States.
Domestic undergraduates face average annual tuition fees of $13,135 (?9,535), the highest in the OECD.
Almost all students take out government-backed loans, leaving graduates with average debts of more than $68,000.
While total expenditure per tertiary student is among the world’s highest at $35,350, government spending per student is just $7,896 – roughly half the OECD average.
Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said the OECD data showed the UK system was both resilient and fragile: “We have very low dropout rates and a successful system that puts few – perhaps too few – expectations on taxpayers. Hundreds of thousands of international students are attracted to the UK each year and they prop up the system via their high fees.”
“But…we are performing relatively poorly when it comes to outcomes for lower-skilled people, educational outcomes for men compared to women and teachers’ pay. Moreover, we can see the terms and conditions for younger academics lag some way behind what might be reasonably expected for a truly world-class higher education sector.”
The report highlights that junior academics in England earn 16 per cent less than the average graduate worker, while senior staff earn 80 per cent more.
Pamela Baxter, managing director of IELTS at Cambridge University Press & Assessment, said the data “is an unequivocal rebuttal to those who talk down higher education”.
She added: “We should also be mindful of the risk of underinvesting in universities, particularly when UK institutions rely so heavily on non-state sources of funding.”
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