Independent rankings built from public data — every figure traceable to the body that published it.
Report year 1981Data year 1981
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 1981 — 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.
89 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 | 55.348 | 57.603 | 53.144 |
| Russia | RUS | 45.902 | 52.579 | 39.596 |
| Ukraine | UKR | 41.192 | — | — |
| Belarus | BLR | 39.148 | — | — |
| Kazakhstan | KAZ | 32.943 | — | — |
| Georgia | GEO | 28.708 | 26.166 | 31.359 |
| Micronesia | FSM | 27.365 | 13.448 | 40.803 |
| North Macedonia | MKD | 25.255 | — | — |
| Lebanon | LBN | 24.808 | 18.231 | 31.152 |
| Tajikistan | TJK | 24.231 | — | — |
| Mongolia | MNG | 23.139 | — | — |
| Argentina | ARG | 22.963 | 24.684 | 21.274 |
| Philippines | PHL | 22.372 | 24.475 | 20.368 |
| Turkmenistan | TKM | 22.272 | — | — |
| Panama | PAN | 20.923 | 22.876 | 19.015 |
| Peru | PER | 20.643 | — | — |
| Iceland | ISL | 20.276 | 20.870 | 19.721 |
| Venezuela | VEN | 18.972 | — | — |
| Uruguay | URY | 17.251 | — | — |
| Bahamas | BHS | 17.099 | — | — |
| Egypt | EGY | 16.928 | 10.886 | 22.735 |
| Jordan | JOR | 16.724 | 15.670 | 17.726 |
| Syria | SYR | 16.717 | 9.890 | 23.415 |
| Cuba | CUB | 16.175 | 15.876 | 16.465 |
| Barbados | BRB | 15.155 | 16.411 | 13.915 |
| Bermuda | BMU | 13.146 | 13.972 | 12.375 |
| Saudi Arabia | SAU | 11.146 | 6.603 | 15.188 |
| Paraguay | PRY | 9.675 | — | — |
| Iraq | IRQ | 9.655 | 6.187 | 13.058 |
| Kuwait | KWT | 8.934 | 12.295 | 6.538 |
| Honduras | HND | 8.426 | — | — |
| Thailand | THA | 7.618 | — | — |
| Tonga | TON | 7.142 | 6.266 | 7.985 |
| Jamaica | JAM | 6.523 | — | — |
| Qatar | QAT | 6.477 | 16.316 | 3.276 |
| Morocco | MAR | 5.995 | — | — |
| Suriname | SUR | 5.970 | — | — |
| Libya | LBY | 5.620 | 2.996 | 7.984 |
| Guatemala | GTM | 5.442 | — | — |
| Türkiye | TUR | 5.357 | — | — |
| India | IND | 5.240 | 2.879 | 7.410 |
| Tunisia | TUN | 4.910 | 2.972 | 6.771 |
| Albania | ALB | 4.822 | 4.883 | 4.764 |
| Myanmar | MMR | 4.718 | — | — |
| Bahrain | BHR | 4.717 | 4.849 | 4.628 |
| Republic of the Congo | COG | 4.340 | 1.292 | 7.382 |
| Trinidad and Tobago | TTO | 4.244 | 3.663 | 4.808 |
| Guinea | GIN | 4.147 | 1.566 | 6.800 |
| Indonesia | IDN | 3.850 | — | — |
| Samoa | WSM | 3.543 | 0.521 | 6.274 |
| Nepal | NPL | 3.359 | — | — |
| Eswatini | SWZ | 3.103 | 2.266 | 4.122 |
| Sri Lanka | LKA | 2.935 | 2.538 | 3.321 |
| Bangladesh | BGD | 2.925 | 0.816 | 5.014 |
| Guyana | GUY | 2.856 | 2.464 | 3.259 |
| Côte d’Ivoire | CIV | 2.790 | — | — |
| Senegal | SEN | 2.718 | 1.000 | 4.436 |
| Madagascar | MDG | 2.590 | — | — |
| Fiji | FJI | 2.461 | — | — |
| Nigeria | NGA | 2.363 | — | — |
| Saint Lucia | LCA | 2.220 | 2.311 | 2.129 |
| Vietnam | VNM | 2.073 | 0.983 | 3.155 |
| China | CHN | 2.043 | — | — |
| Zimbabwe | ZWE | 1.860 | — | — |
| Togo | TGO | 1.820 | 0.536 | 3.120 |
| Cameroon | CMR | 1.571 | — | — |
| Zambia | ZMB | 1.426 | 0.581 | 2.306 |
| Benin | BEN | 1.334 | — | — |
| Botswana | BWA | 1.273 | 0.828 | 1.761 |
| DR Congo | COD | 1.170 | — | — |
| Lesotho | LSO | 0.961 | 0.939 | 0.985 |
| Kenya | KEN | 0.884 | — | — |
| Haiti | HTI | 0.861 | 0.518 | 1.207 |
| Mauritius | MUS | 0.819 | 0.493 | 1.125 |
| Sierra Leone | SLE | 0.773 | — | — |
| Dominica | DMA | 0.748 | 0.341 | 1.134 |
| Central African Republic | CAF | 0.744 | 0.122 | 1.385 |
| Uganda | UGA | 0.535 | 0.243 | 0.834 |
| Ethiopia | ETH | 0.494 | — | — |
| Malawi | MWI | 0.450 | 0.233 | 0.687 |
| Burundi | BDI | 0.443 | 0.218 | 0.670 |
| Laos | LAO | 0.439 | 0.279 | 0.594 |
| Burkina Faso | BFA | 0.277 | 0.118 | 0.440 |
| Niger | NER | 0.255 | 0.103 | 0.401 |
| Rwanda | RWA | 0.243 | 0.048 | 0.439 |
| Mozambique | MOZ | 0.101 | — | — |
| Cambodia | KHM | 0.099 | — | — |
| Oman | OMN | 0.019 | 0.000 | 0.038 |
| Djibouti | DJI | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 |