Independent rankings built from public data — every figure traceable to the body that published it.
Report year 1979Data year 1979
Gross enrolment ratio, tertiary (%)Higher is better — rank 1 leadsPublished by UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)
52 editions (1971–2024), 60 to 148 countries. The number of people enrolled in tertiary education as a share of the population of the standard tertiary age group. Female and male ratios are stored beside the headline figure. ⚠ A GROSS RATIO, SO IT CAN EXCEED 100%. It counts everyone enrolled, at any age, against the population of the five-year age band that would normally be studying — so mature students, repeaters and inbound foreign students all push it up. Macau leads 2024 at 142%, which is not an error and does not mean everyone is enrolled. ⚠ Editions reporting fewer than 50 countries are not written — that drops UIS’s trailing stub year, which opens with a handful of early reporters, and any thin historical year. ⚠ UIS ranks nobody, so no rank is stored; the POSITION on the statistics page is derived here by ordering the score and labelled as ours.
Tertiary Enrolment Ratio 1979 — UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)
Cite as: UNESCO Institute for Statistics. UIS Data Browser. Montreal: UNESCO Institute for Statistics.
Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0
UIS release 20260507-91260335. Read from the UIS API at full precision, as published — nothing is rounded here. ⚠ Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, so anything derived from it carries the same ShareAlike obligation. UIS publishes no rank, so none is stored and none is derived here.
77 rows × 5 columns · imported from the publisher’s published data file on
Select any column heading to sort by it; select it again to reverse.
| Country | ISO Code | Gross enrolment ratio, tertiary (%) | Female | Male |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | USA | 51.810 | 52.033 | 51.58955 |
| Russia | RUS | 43.822 | — | — |
| Lebanon | LBN | 25.998 | — | — |
| Bahamas | BHS | 25.907 | — | — |
| Micronesia | FSM | 23.243 | 14.708 | 31.41026 |
| Mongolia | MNG | 23.033 | — | — |
| Argentina | ARG | 22.011 | 22.023 | 21.99881 |
| Philippines | PHL | 21.094 | 22.903 | 19.37049 |
| Panama | PAN | 19.603 | 21.490 | 17.76149 |
| Venezuela | VEN | 18.343 | — | — |
| Peru | PER | 16.479 | — | — |
| Uruguay | URY | 16.429 | 16.997 | 15.86091 |
| Cuba | CUB | 15.808 | 14.238 | 17.33947 |
| Egypt | EGY | 15.534 | 9.514 | 21.35332 |
| Syria | SYR | 14.893 | 8.097 | 21.52361 |
| Jordan | JOR | 10.329 | 8.604 | 11.96748 |
| Saudi Arabia | SAU | 9.459 | 4.646 | 13.78141 |
| Iraq | IRQ | 9.441 | 6.158 | 12.66056 |
| Bermuda | BMU | 8.890 | 9.582 | 8.21806 |
| Nicaragua | NIC | 8.784 | — | — |
| Thailand | THA | 8.435 | — | — |
| Kuwait | KWT | 8.268 | 11.323 | 6.07742 |
| Türkiye | TUR | 7.799 | 3.762 | 11.53403 |
| India | IND | 4.957 | 2.673 | 7.05579 |
| Libya | LBY | 4.912 | 2.116 | 7.44994 |
| Guinea | GIN | 4.901 | — | — |
| Tunisia | TUN | 4.766 | 2.732 | 6.74467 |
| Trinidad and Tobago | TTO | 3.994 | 2.611 | 5.37717 |
| Malaysia | MYS | 3.990 | 3.047 | 4.95495 |
| Myanmar | MMR | 3.669 | 3.745 | 3.59609 |
| Morocco | MAR | 3.590 | 1.775 | 5.41872 |
| Republic of the Congo | COG | 3.474 | — | — |
| Guyana | GUY | 3.064 | 2.726 | 3.41213 |
| Saint Vincent and the Grenadines | VCT | 3.021 | 5.200 | 0.75727 |
| Bangladesh | BGD | 2.905 | 0.812 | 4.96102 |
| Sri Lanka | LKA | 2.904 | 2.207 | 3.58207 |
| Eswatini | SWZ | 2.726 | 1.898 | 3.74657 |
| Bahrain | BHR | 2.719 | 2.630 | 2.77708 |
| Vietnam | VNM | 2.503 | 1.538 | 3.46444 |
| Indonesia | IDN | 2.342 | — | — |
| Liberia | LBR | 2.304 | 1.267 | 3.35600 |
| Gabon | GAB | 2.271 | 1.017 | 3.56057 |
| Brunei | BRN | 2.115 | 2.822 | 1.55966 |
| Saint Lucia | LCA | 2.097 | 2.666 | 1.52393 |
| Pakistan | PAK | 2.040 | 1.102 | 2.91516 |
| Côte d’Ivoire | CIV | 1.982 | 0.688 | 3.29819 |
| Madagascar | MDG | 1.949 | 1.291 | 2.60072 |
| Afghanistan | AFG | 1.918 | 0.592 | 3.20426 |
| Tonga | TON | 1.811 | 1.452 | 2.15561 |
| Nigeria | NGA | 1.630 | — | — |
| Cameroon | CMR | 1.601 | — | — |
| Zimbabwe | ZWE | 1.505 | — | — |
| Zambia | ZMB | 1.498 | 0.683 | 2.34908 |
| Grenada | GRD | 1.379 | 1.397 | 1.36176 |
| Togo | TGO | 1.282 | 0.419 | 2.15563 |
| DR Congo | COD | 1.257 | — | — |
| Saint Kitts and Nevis | KNA | 1.248 | 1.837 | 0.64231 |
| Mauritius | MUS | 1.145 | 0.635 | 1.62682 |
| China | CHN | 1.010 | 0.498 | 1.49913 |
| Botswana | BWA | 0.998 | 0.714 | 1.31031 |
| Lesotho | LSO | 0.970 | 0.903 | 1.04175 |
| Benin | BEN | 0.901 | 0.317 | 1.49213 |
| Kenya | KEN | 0.862 | — | — |
| Haiti | HTI | 0.801 | 0.373 | 1.23373 |
| Mali | MLI | 0.762 | 0.178 | 1.34606 |
| Bhutan | BTN | 0.730 | 0.415 | 1.02860 |
| Central African Republic | CAF | 0.664 | 0.245 | 1.08615 |
| Uganda | UGA | 0.523 | 0.253 | 0.79623 |
| Ethiopia | ETH | 0.479 | 0.120 | 0.85227 |
| Burundi | BDI | 0.447 | 0.151 | 0.74554 |
| Malawi | MWI | 0.419 | — | — |
| Tanzania | TZA | 0.263 | 0.084 | 0.46756 |
| Rwanda | RWA | 0.233 | — | — |
| Burkina Faso | BFA | 0.232 | 0.092 | 0.37540 |
| Niger | NER | 0.177 | 0.061 | 0.28849 |
| Mozambique | MOZ | 0.078 | — | — |
| Oman | OMN | 0.016 | 0.005 | 0.02613 |