Today we will go through the most educated countries in Europe in 2020.
There are different educational systems in different countries, of course, starting from primary to middle and higher education, comprising of more or less same levels of knowledge on all of these. Since primary educational levels are compulsory in Europe, we will focus more on the highest educational levels.
There are many universities in Europe which have century old traditions. First European universities originated as part of monasteries and monastic schools, like Grammars for example. In these Grammar schools, main fields of interest were studies of Latin language, writing and rhetoric skills and sometimes also included arithmetic and other more scientific oriented knowledge.
Later on, universities in Europe were funded and supported by kings and governing instances. First European independent universities include universities of Bologna (as the first university ever founded), Oxford and Paris which date back to 11th and 12th century. During the Middle Ages number of universities in Europe has increased rapidly.
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The rise of modern universities was seen in the 19th century. The “modernization” was seen in the secularization of universities and orienting more and more towards scientific approaches. Also, the other important thing about these universities was making them more accessible to ordinary people and even those of low or no income at all. That was also the time when national public universities were first opened.
With a long and important history of high education, Europe is still a great place for studying. There are many universities in Europe that teach in English. On that matter, you might be interested to find out which the best universities in Europe for international students are. There are many universities, apart from those in UK and Ireland where international students can find cheap universities that teach in English and some of the best counties to study in Europe for international students where that is possible are Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland. From the huge list of universities in Europe some that offer cheap education in English, and also highly ranked, are: University of Oslo, Uppsala University, University of Tübingen, Leiden University, just to name some.
On the matter of the best European country to study and work, it will mostly depend on the time spent at the University, and the subject you are studying, studying for some professions just wouldn’t leave you free time for work. But some of the countries where working and studying is possible and affordable are France, Germany, Spain, and the UK. That is because universities in many countries are mostly public. For example, a great majority of universities in countries like Norway, Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, Italy or Ireland. In some others, although majority being public there is a certain number of private universities in Spain, France, and Poland. Anyway, getting some of the funding from organizations like Erasmus+, for example, can open a wide variety of opportunities with no necessity of working while studying.
Some of the best and most famous European universities concerning technology and science would certainly include ETH Zurich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, being at the top of university rankings together with University of Cambridge and Imperial College London. These are also some of the recommendations for the top universities in Europe for engineering. Furthermore, check out the list of Europe universities and take your pick.
Concerning education in Europe, you will surely find the countries that are on our list at the Top 50 Most Educated Countries with the Best Education Systems in the World as well.
We have made our main ranking by percentage of the population with tertiary level education for the population of 25-64 of age categories. The data came from the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), and the figures are the situation from 2016. We have also then added a parameter showing the quality of education just as a comparison to the quantity data we have ranked our list on. The education quality data comes from World Economic Forum’s report on Global Competitiveness Rankings for 2019-2020, with the data in subcategory Education Quality. The highest score for education quality is 7.
So now when we have gone through the short history of European universities, and also seen that the level of European education is among the top in the world, let’s see which are those most educated countries in Europe in 2020:
