Little steps forward in the fight to 18-to-24 year-olds dropping out of schools and universities: the proportion reached 9.1% in 2025. So, it’s just so close to the 9% target that is the EU’s target for 2030. It started by measuring when dropouts were 11%, back in 2015. The figures published today by Eurostat, the European Statistics Bureau, say that more boys than girls leave their studies without completing them: boys decreased from 12.5% in 2015 to 10.6% in 2025; girls were 9.4% in 2015 and dropped to 7.5% last year. 17 EU countries have already reached the 9% target – definitely not an ambitious nor a reassuring one. The lowest proportions of young people dropping out of schools and training have been reported in Croatia (2.1%), Greece (3%) and Ireland (3.6%). The problem is quite sharp in Romania (15.5%), Germany (13.1%) and Spain (12.8%). With its 8.2%, Italy is one of the countries that have met the target. In some countries, the proportion of early leavers has increased in 2025 compared with 2015: they include Cyprus (+4.6%), Germany (+3%) and Austria (+2.7%).