Within the European Union, over one young person out of seven aged 15 to 34 dropped out of an educational or vocational programme at least once. This was certified by new data processed by Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Union, according to which 14.2% young Europeans dropped out of education in 2024. The highest dropout rates were reported in the Netherlands (32.2%), Denmark (27.1%), Luxembourg (24.8%) and Estonia (24.4%). At the opposite end of the spectrum were Romania (1.5%), Greece (2.2%) and Bulgaria (3.5%), where the phenomenon turned out to be more moderate. Among the main member states of the European Union, Italy ranked below the EU average with 8.1%, while France reached 19.8%, Spain 15.5% and Germany 13.2%. As explained by Eurostat in a release, at all levels of education (low, medium and high), “the most common reason for not completing an education programme was that it did not meet expectations or was too difficult (42.6%)”. This was followed by family or personal reasons (18.5%) and preference for work (13.8%), while just 5.3% of the total mentioned financial reasons as the main reason for dropping out.