At the top of the podium for EU study preferences sit business, management and law, with millions of young people enrolled in the corresponding courses, and women well out in front, since a full 58% of all tertiary education graduates were female. Greece shows a similar picture, both in terms of subject choices and in the clear lead women hold over male graduates.

How many are studying

According to Eurostat figures, there were 19.1 million tertiary education students in the EU in 2024, of whom 59% were studying for a university degree, 29.4% for a master’s qualification and 3.8% for a doctorate.

Bachelor’s and master’s students therefore made up 88.4% of the total number of tertiary education students, with the highest proportions for these two levels found in Poland (98.5%), Bulgaria and Lithuania (both 97.4%), Croatia (96.9%), Italy (96.3%), Greece (96.1%) and Romania (96.0%).

Popular subjects studied

Across the European Union, more than one fifth (22%) of all tertiary education students were studying business, administration and law.

The other most common fields are education, health and welfare, and engineering and construction, while the only other subject area to account for double-digit numbers of tertiary students was arts and humanities.

Business, administration and law were also the fields in which degrees were most frequently awarded across the EU, accounting for a quarter of the total.

The gender gap in degrees

In 2024, again according to Eurostat, around 4.5 million students graduated from tertiary education in the EU, with France taking the lion’s share, well ahead of Germany and Spain.

In every single country, Greece included, women graduating from tertiary education outnumbered men.

Of the 4.5 million tertiary education graduates that year, 2.6 million were women against 1.9 million male graduates

In Greece, female tertiary education graduates made up around 60% of the total.

Where women lead

This pattern, women outnumbering men among graduates, was observed across the majority of subject areas.

Around 14.5% of all tertiary education graduates were women who had graduated from courses linked to business, business administration and law, while 10.6% were men from the same field.

Roughly one tenth of all tertiary education graduates were women who had graduated from health and social welfare courses (11.1%), while a similar share applied to men who had graduated from engineering, manufacturing and construction courses (10.0%).

A roughly equal number of male and female graduates was recorded in agriculture, forestry, fisheries and veterinary science, as well as in the services sector.

By contrast, among graduates who had studied information and communication technologies, the number of men was 3.7 times higher than the number of women.