Start of the academic year: Where does Romania rank in the EU in terms of tertiary education and how big are the regional differences?

Romania ranks last in the European Union in terms of the percentage of the population with a higher education degree, with only 19% of the adult population, compared to the European average of 35%, according to the Social Monitor, a project of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Romania. The situation is exacerbated by significant regional disparities, with regions such as South Muntenia and North-East being among the least educated in the EU, condemning them to long-term underdevelopment.

The tertiary education rate, or the proportion of the population that has completed some form of higher education, is considered one of the most important indicators of a community's socio-economic potential. Experts say that this tertiary education rate is one of the most commonly used criteria to determine the level of economic investment and development in the region in question in the medium and long term.

According to the latest Eurostat data (for 2023), Romania has long ranked last in the European Union in terms of the proportion of higher education graduates (19% of the population aged 25-64) – just over half the European average (35%). Despite the relatively high number of degrees awarded by state and private universities, the proportion of graduates in the population remains low due to the emigration of many of them. Moreover, the gap with the European average is widening (in 2011 it was 11 pp, now it has reached 17 pp).

By comparison, other post-communist countries such as Lithuania, with over 46% of the population having higher education, Estonia (42%), Poland (38%), and Slovenia (34%) have significantly higher education rates. The country in second-to-last place, ahead of Romania, is Italy, with a tertiary education rate of 22%.

Moreover, the disparities in education between the regions of our country are considerable: while Bucharest-Ilfov has a higher than average percentage of higher education graduates (39%) compared to the European average, in other regions the situation is dramatic: among the 10 regions (NUTS2) with the lowest percentages of higher education graduates in the EU, there are 5 regions in Romania. The undesirable top 10 least educated regions also include regions in the Czech Republic, Italy, Croatia, and Portugal.

At the top of this ranking are the regions of Brabant in Belgium, which overlaps with the city of Brussels, Sostines in Lithuania (Vilnius), and Warszawski Stołeczny in Poland (Warsaw), where 62% of the population are higher education graduates.

The regions of South Muntenia (13%), North-East, South-East (14%), and South-West Oltenia (16%) have the lowest proportions of higher education graduates in the European Union, thus condemning them to long-term underdevelopment.

The fact that four of Romania's eight regions are the lowest-ranked in this hierarchy shows us that the development potential of these regions is currently very weak.

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The complete Eurostat data set can be consulted at https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/product/page/edat_lfse_04__custom_12711309.

Data processing and text design: Mircea Kivu

Infographic: Pascalone Media SRL