OECD Education at a Glance

Education: A Pricey Commodity, 11 Sept.

by Peter Mayr & Conrad Seidl

[...] The OECD survey emphasises that Austrian educational opportunities are essentially inherited. Young adults, especially men from less-educated families only rarely obtain higher education.

According to the report [Education at a Glance 2012], Austrian parents exert a lot of influence, yet not enough motivation. Politicians have also argued along similar lines, always quick to demonstrate that their political stance has been confirmed.

Science Minister Karlheinz Töchterle, for example, interprets the rise in university admissions (an increase of nine percent to 63 percent), as a success of his policy – at the same time sugarcoating the low number of university graduates: the hard data shows that only one in five has a university degree […]. And in fact little has changed from one generation to another, stressed OECD-expert and report coordinator Andreas Schleicher.

[...] However, graduating from university is extremely financially profitable in Austria: Among the OECD countries, Austria ranks third behind Luxembourg and the USA. [...]