MOE higher-education gross enrollment rate
61.3%Ministry of Education of China ↗
official national value · 2025
Population, society and living standards · education
Educational attainment and higher education
China’s Ministry of Education series and the World Bank/UNESCO UIS international series are shown separately. Gross enrollment measures participation; adult Bachelor’s attainment measures completed education stock.
Total higher-education student scale
48.73
million students · 2025
Higher-education institutions
3,167
institutions · 2025
Postgraduate students
4.30
million students · 2025
The 61.3% figure is the Ministry of Education national rate for 2025. The 76.9% figure is China’s latest available internationally comparable World Bank WDI/UNESCO UIS observation, for 2024. The years, coverage, age group and denominator treatment differ, so the page does not splice them.
Official China trend
Higher-education participation and student scale, 2019–2025
Gross enrollment uses the left axis and total student scale the right axis. Both are annual Ministry of Education series.
Source: Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China ↗ · Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China ↗ · Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China ↗ · Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China ↗ · Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China ↗ · Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China ↗ · Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China ↗ · Seven annual Ministry of Education releases; domestic official series, not spliced to WDI/UISchinainfigures.com
Internationally comparable published observations
Tertiary gross enrollment across ten economies, 2020–2024
Only published WDI/UIS country-year observations are plotted. The United States, Japan, the UK, Canada, Brazil and Australia have visible gaps; values are never zero-filled, interpolated or carried forward.
Why can values exceed 100%?The numerator includes tertiary students of all ages, while the denominator is the official tertiary-age population.
Source: World Bank WDI / UNESCO UIS ↗ · World Bank WDI / UNESCO UIS; missing years remain missing; separate from the MOE domestic serieschinainfigures.com
Accessible data table
Published tertiary gross enrollment observations
| Economy | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| China | 61.6% | 66.8% | 71.6% | 74.6% | 76.9% |
| United States | 87.6% | 84.9% | 79.4% | — | — |
| Japan | 62.3% | 62.0% | 63.4% | 64.5% | — |
| United Kingdom | 69.4% | 76.8% | 79.8% | 80.4% | — |
| India | 29.8% | 31.6% | 32.7% | 34.2% | 34.4% |
| Korea, Rep. | 96.9% | 100.4% | 102.8% | 106.7% | 111.9% |
| Germany | 72.4% | 75.7% | 77.4% | 78.6% | 76.7% |
| Canada | 75.2% | 79.8% | 78.8% | 76.3% | — |
| Brazil | 55.5% | 57.6% | 61.0% | — | 69.7% |
| Australia | — | 112.7% | 106.2% | 104.6% | 108.4% |
Adult educational attainment stock
Population aged 25+ with at least Bachelor’s or equivalent
Each economy uses its latest available observation, with reference years ranging from 2020 to 2024. This is not a same-year 2024 ranking and not current university enrollment.
Source: World Bank WDI / UNESCO UIS ↗ · Reference years differ by economy; every bar retains its year; not a 2024 rankingchinainfigures.com
Reference years stay visible
Latest available Bachelor’s attainment values
| Economy | Latest value | Reference year |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 39.6% | 2021 |
| United States | 39.1% | 2024 |
| Australia | 36.8% | 2024 |
| Korea, Rep. | 36.5% | 2024 |
| Canada | 34.7% | 2024 |
| Germany | 30.5% | 2023 |
| Japan | 25.5% | 2020 |
| Brazil | 17.2% | 2024 |
| India | 14.9% | 2023 |
| China | 7.7% | 2020 |
Participation
Gross enrollment is not a net enrollment rate
Students of all ages are included in the numerator, so gross enrollment can exceed 100% in economies such as Korea and Australia.
Attainment stock
Bachelor’s attainment is not an annual graduation rate
It describes the cumulative stock of completed education among people aged 25 and older, not current admissions, enrollment or graduates.
Source boundary
MOE and WDI/UIS remain separate
The domestic official trend describes China’s system; WDI/UIS supports cross-country comparison. Methodological differences should never be hidden by merging the series.
Downloads and revisions
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Page data
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Includes registered formal points, available historical series and scalar derived metrics. UTF-8 encoded for spreadsheets and analysis tools.
Download CSV ↓Data file updated: 16 Oct 2026
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Public record
Revision and update timeline
Educational attainment and higher education indicator added
Added China's 2019-2024 official higher-education participation and scale series, ten-economy WDI/UIS tertiary enrollment observations and latest-available adult Bachelor's attainment context.
Related sources: Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China ↗ · Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China ↗ · Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China ↗ · Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China ↗ · Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China ↗ · Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China ↗ · World Bank ↗
Sources and definitions registered; automated checks passed
China higher-education series refreshed to 2025
Added the Ministry of Education 2025 official release: gross enrollment rate 61.3%, total higher-education student scale 48.7257 million, 3,167 institutions, 39.5396 million undergraduate/vocational students, 4.2995 million postgraduate students and 2.2236 million full-time higher-education teachers.
Related sources: Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China ↗
Sources and definitions registered; automated checks passed
Data downloads and revision timeline added
Added page-level formal-data CSV files, chart-level CSV/PNG/SVG exports and a bilingual revision timeline to all indicator pages.
Sources and definitions registered; automated checks passed