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Government spending on tertiary education as share of GDP

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Global Education

What you should know about this indicator

  • Governments allocate part of their national income to fund education — this indicator shows how much is spent specifically on tertiary education relative to the overall economy.
  • It captures public spending on tertiary education as a percentage of a country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
  • The indicator is calculated by dividing total government spending on tertiary education by the country’s GDP and multiplying by 100.
  • A higher value indicates a greater public investment in tertiary education relative to national income, which may reflect policy priorities, levels of educational development, or student population size.
  • The data come from national education finance records and are typically reported to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) through standardized annual surveys.
  • GDP data are sourced from national accounts compiled by central statistical offices or international organizations like the World Bank or IMF.
  • This indicator is useful for comparing education investment efforts across countries or tracking trends over time within a country.
  • It should be interpreted alongside other indicators, such as enrolment rates and per-student spending, to understand the efficiency and equity of education financing.
  • Some limitations apply. Differences in accounting practices, data availability, and timing between education spending and GDP reporting can affect comparability.
  • Despite these challenges, the government spending on tertiary education as a share of GDP offers valuable insight into how much a country invests in the development of its adult population through formal education.
Government spending on tertiary education as share of GDP
Government spending on (including local, regional, central, current, capital, and transfers) as a percentage of GDP, inclusive of international transfers.
Source
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2025) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
May 1, 2025
Next expected update
May 2026
Date range
1970–2024
Unit
%

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

The UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) is the official and trusted source of internationally-comparable data on education, science, culture and communication. As the official statistical agency of UNESCO, the UIS produces a wide range of state-of-the-art databases to fuel the policies and investments needed to transform lives and propel the world towards its development goals. The UIS provides free access to data for all UNESCO countries and regional groupings from 1970 to the most recent year available.

Retrieved on
May 1, 2025
Retrieved from
https://databrowser.uis.unesco.org/resources/bulk
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), Education, https://uis.unesco.org/bdds, 2025

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

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Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Government spending on tertiary education as share of GDP”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Veronika Samborska, Natasha Ahuja, Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, and Max Roser (2023) - “Global Education”. Data adapted from UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/government-expenditure-on-tertiary-education-as-share-of-gdp [online resource]
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2025) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2025) – processed by Our World in Data. “Government spending on tertiary education as share of GDP” [dataset]. UNESCO Institute for Statistics, “UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) - Education” [original data]. Retrieved May 18, 2025 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/government-expenditure-on-tertiary-education-as-share-of-gdp