Bachelor’s-or-higher educational attainment among urban adults aged 25 and older varies widely across the 30 countries and areas with a reported 2024 value in the supplied UNESCO UIS series. The indicator does not measure university enrollment, the share of all residents who have ever attended college, or the proportion of the entire national population with a degree. It measures the percentage of urban residents aged 25+ who have completed at least a bachelor’s or equivalent level of education. Countries without a 2024 observation are not treated as zero and are not inserted into the ranking.
Across the 30 reported observations, the mean is 22.51% and the median is 19.27%. Georgia records the highest value at 45.80%, while Kiribati has the lowest at 2.87%, producing a spread of 42.94 percentage points. Five observations are at or above 40%, nine are at or above 30%, sixteen are below 20%, and five are below 10%. These counts show why the distribution is more informative than a single average: the reporting countries include a small high-attainment group near 40% or above and a much larger set spread across the teens and twenties.
Table of Contents
What the indicator measures
UNESCO UIS defines educational attainment as the highest level of education successfully completed, with levels organized using the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED). The UIS glossary for educational attainment among people aged 25 and older describes the indicator as a distribution of adults by the highest level they have attained or completed. The specific series used here is EA.6T8.AG25T99.URB: bachelor’s or equivalent education or higher, age 25+, urban residence, both sexes, expressed as a percentage. A value of 40% therefore means that about four in ten people in that defined urban adult population have completed at least that level.
The residence qualifier matters. An urban-only attainment rate is not the same as a national attainment rate and cannot be substituted for one. Urban areas may contain disproportionate shares of universities, government institutions, professional employment and migrants with tertiary qualifications, but this indicator alone cannot establish why a country has a high or low urban value. A valid urban-rural comparison would require a matching rural series for the same year, age group, sex coverage and educational threshold.
The shape of the 2024 distribution
The upper end is relatively concentrated. Georgia is first at 45.80%, followed by Switzerland at 42.93%, Australia at 42.54%, Mongolia at 42.46% and the United States at 41.71%. South Korea records 39.49%, Moldova 39.44%, Kazakhstan 38.79% and Greece 33.64%. The next observation, Bolivia at 24.27%, is substantially lower, creating a noticeable gap between the nine observations above 30% and the middle of the sample. This does not prove that there are two universal groups of countries; it is simply a feature of the 30 observations available for 2024.
The middle is denser. Chile is at 23.86%, the Dominican Republic at 21.31%, Colombia at 21.22%, Paraguay at 20.96%, Costa Rica at 19.67%, Brazil at 18.87% and Panama at 18.15%. South Africa, Nigeria and Rwanda follow at 17.71%, 16.51% and 16.37%. With several countries separated by only one or two percentage points, a rank number can exaggerate the practical difference between neighboring observations. Reading the actual percentage beside the rank gives a more accurate sense of the gap.
At the lower end, Uruguay reports 13.39%, Kenya 12.92%, Honduras 11.51%, Cabo Verde 10.98% and Ecuador 10.29%. Guatemala, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Zambia and Kiribati are below 10%, with values ranging from 7.63% down to 2.87%. The numerical distance between the highest and lowest observations is large, but the series should not be used by itself to explain the causes of that distance. Differences in historical access to higher education, cohort structure, urban definitions, survey sources and the classification of qualifications can all matter and require separate evidence.
| Country or area | 2024 rate |
|---|---|
| Georgia | 45.80% |
| Switzerland | 42.93% |
| Australia | 42.54% |
| Mongolia | 42.46% |
| United States | 41.71% |
| South Korea | 39.49% |
| Moldova | 39.44% |
| Kazakhstan | 38.79% |
| Greece | 33.64% |
| Bolivia | 24.27% |
| Kiribati | 2.87% |
| Zambia | 5.90% |
| Burkina Faso | 6.62% |
| Ghana | 7.34% |
| Guatemala | 7.63% |
| Ecuador | 10.29% |
| Cabo Verde | 10.98% |
| Honduras | 11.51% |
| Kenya | 12.92% |
| Uruguay | 13.39% |
Why the median is useful alongside the mean
The mean of 22.51% is higher than the median of 19.27% by about 3.24 percentage points. That happens because the cluster of values in the upper 30s and 40s pulls the arithmetic average upward. If the goal is to describe a typical position within this particular set of observations, the median is less affected by those high values. If the goal is to summarize the overall level across the 30 equally weighted observations, the mean is useful. Neither statistic is a population-weighted global average, because countries are not weighted by their urban adult populations here.
The quartiles reinforce the same point. The first quartile is about 11.87% and the third quartile about 37.50%, meaning the middle half of observations spans more than 25 percentage points. That is a broad interquartile range. It also means statements such as ‘urban bachelor’s attainment is around 20%’ conceal substantial variation. These quartiles describe only the reporting set. Adding countries that currently lack a 2024 observation could shift the center and the spread.
What can and cannot be inferred from regional patterns
Several Latin American and Caribbean reporting countries sit in the high teens to low twenties, including Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Paraguay, Costa Rica, Brazil and Panama, while Uruguay, Honduras, Ecuador and Guatemala are lower in this set. The range within the region is itself important. Because not every country in the region appears in the 2024 data used here, it would be inappropriate to calculate a regional benchmark from this subset and present it as representative of Latin America and the Caribbean as a whole.
The African reporting countries are also dispersed: South Africa, Nigeria and Rwanda are in the mid-to-high teens, Kenya is near 13%, and Ghana, Burkina Faso and Zambia are in single digits. Among the reporting countries in Europe and Central Asia, several values are above 30%, including Switzerland, Georgia, Moldova, Kazakhstan and Greece. These patterns describe where the observed values fall; they do not identify a causal regional effect. Explaining differences would require additional data on higher-education access, migration, labor markets, age structure, urbanization and national qualification systems.
Cross-country comparison requires classification caution
The UIS educational attainment guidance warns that countries do not always classify degrees and qualifications at identical ISCED levels, even when programs are completed at similar ages or after similar durations of study. Some programs are difficult to map neatly across national systems. This is especially relevant when two countries differ by only a fraction of a percentage point. Switzerland at 42.93% and Australia at 42.54%, for example, are numerically close enough that the ordering should not be interpreted as a definitive ranking of educational performance.
Attainment also says little about education quality by itself. Completing a bachelor’s degree or equivalent indicates the level of formal education attained, but it does not directly measure learning outcomes, field of study, institutional quality, employment, earnings, research capacity or whether skills are being used in the labor market. Two countries can have similar attainment rates yet very different higher-education systems. A lower bachelor’s rate may also coexist with strong short-cycle tertiary or vocational pathways that are not captured by this threshold in the same way.
Why the urban and age filters matter
Urban residence can highlight spatial concentration that disappears in a national average. In countries where universities and highly skilled jobs are concentrated in major cities, urban attainment may be markedly above rural attainment. Yet ‘urban’ is itself a statistical category whose definition can vary across countries. The series does not split capital cities from smaller urban centers, so it should not be read as a measure of metropolitan inequality. More granular geography would be needed for that purpose.
The age threshold of 25+ also combines many cohorts. A country that expanded university access rapidly in recent decades may have much higher attainment among people in their late twenties and thirties than among older adults. Another country may have had broad access for a longer period, producing higher attainment across more age groups. The 2024 cross-section therefore reflects accumulated educational opportunities experienced by multiple generations, not only the performance of universities in 2024.
How to use this indicator with other education measures
Bachelor’s-or-higher attainment becomes more informative when read with other thresholds such as completion of upper secondary education, short-cycle tertiary education, master’s degrees and doctorates. Those measures reveal whether a country’s educational profile is broad across several levels or concentrated at a particular stage. Sex-disaggregated data can show whether the overall rate conceals differences between women and men, while matched rural data can show whether the urban figure is part of a larger spatial divide. The key is to keep the denominator, age range, residence category and year aligned before making a direct comparison.
The observations analyzed here come from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics 2024 series. The UIS Data Browser provides the official environment for exploring indicator definitions, disaggregations and available observations. All calculations in this article use the 30 supplied 2024 values without imputing missing countries. Because reporting coverage can change, future releases may alter both the set of countries and the descriptive statistics. A current comparison should always verify the year, location category, age threshold, sex coverage and education level before reusing a percentage.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does the urban bachelor’s-or-higher attainment rate measure?
It is the percentage of urban residents aged 25 and older who have completed at least a bachelor’s or equivalent level of education. It is not a university enrollment rate.
What are the highest and lowest 2024 observations?
Among the 30 supplied observations, Georgia is highest at 45.80% and Kiribati is lowest at 2.87%, a difference of 42.94 percentage points.
Why are only 30 countries and areas compared?
Only those 30 have a 2024 value in the verified data used here. Missing countries are not assigned zero or imputed values, so the results are not a complete world ranking.
Does a higher attainment rate mean higher education quality?
No. The indicator measures the level of formal education completed, not learning outcomes, institutional quality, employment, earnings or other dimensions of educational quality.
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