Almost 9% of EU graduates in 2022 studied abroad

In 2022, 363 900 graduates in the EU studied abroad during their degree for at least 3 months (so-called credit mobile graduates enrolled in tertiary education ISCED levels 5-8). As there were 4.1 million graduates in the EU that year, this means that 8.9% had participated in a mobility programme abroad.

Among EU countries, the largest number of graduates with credit mobility stays, 179 997 or 49.5% of the total, came from France. With 51 100 or a 14.0% share of the total, Germany had the second highest number, while Italy ranked third with 47 815 credit mobile graduates, a share of 13.1%. 

The main destination for EU graduates who studied abroad was Spain, accounting for 11.1% of all credit mobile graduates, followed by non-EU countries: the United Kingdom (9.7%) and the United States (7.2%).

Source datasets: educ_uoe_mobc01 and educ_uoe_mobc02

Some EU countries attracted large shares of students from specific EU countries. Greece had for example by far the highest share of students from Cyprus 54.3%, while Italy received 51.1% of credit mobile graduates from Malta, and Germany hosted 27.1% of students from Luxembourg.

Regarding the top 3 destinations for each EU country, Spain and Germany were the most common destinations. Among non-EU countries, the United Kingdom and the United States were the only countries to appear among the top 3 destinations for credit mobile graduates from any of the EU countries.

This article marks the International Student's Day celebrated annually on 17 November.