I know there’s always time to start university, and is never to late but I’d really want to hear about your experiences with it.

43 comments

  1. In Denmark, most people don’t attend university until they’re around 21, so being 25 and studying at the university is pretty common. There are even some departments where the average age of students who finish is over 30, so 25 is, in perspective, no age, no age at all.

    Usually first-year teams will have a good mix of people aged 20-26; since a lot of faculties mix first-year students and people doing their electives. So, again, being 25 years old at a Danish university is seen as standard.

  2. Halo it is me!

    I’m 25.

    Took me a while to get my bachelors in physics so I just started my masters, I also took a year to go abroad after highschool.
    Taking a year after highschool is not common at all, but here in university you can take your exams whenever you want, which is great and allows for more freedom and in depth study, but leads many people to take more than the standard 3 years to finish the bachelor and more than the 2 years to finish the master, so it’s not that uncommon to finish later, actually pretty common.
    I do feel old though, especially when I walk in a kindergarten but that’s beside the point.

  3. Really common. In Slovakia, we finish high school at the age 19-21 (depends on when you first started elementary school and on how long your high school is – 4/5 years).

    So let’s say that the average age when people start uni is 20, undergrad degree is 3 years so that would make the person 23 when they get their bachelor’s degree. However, unlike in the US, almost everyone goes to grad school as well. If you don’t get your master’s degree, some people consider you a uni dropout (which is kinda dumb but that’s how it is). Anyway so grad school is 2 years and that would make the average person who finishes university education 25. So yeah, there are many 25 year olds still studying at a university.

    But you can easily find older people too. Those who finished high school at 21 will graduate at 26. Some people took a gap year and started later, some people changed their major and had to start all over again, some didn’t get admitted into their dream major so they waited a year to re-apply again, some will get a PhD. after getting their masters degree,… etc. There are many possibilities. But it’s normal for 25 year olds to be studying at uni.

  4. Totally average, I would *expect* a 25 year old to be at university. Most likely not in the first semester, though that wouldn’t be strange either, but if they’re doing bachelor and master they’re probably not done at 25.

    I finished my M.Sc. at 26 and I started studying at 19. I know many people who took longer to finish as well as people who started a few years later.

  5. Very common. The average age to graduate from university in Finland is **29** (for a Master’s degree).

  6. Quite common, if you start university right after school, you’ll be 19 and will graduate (3 years bachelor) at 21/22 and two more years for a master degree. That being said many people take more time to graduate, others start later, others change degree whilst studying and some degrees take more time (e.g. medicine)

  7. In Turkey, this would not be very common. Most people start university somewhere between 18 and 20, and with 25 they would already be out. If a 25-year-old is still at university, it would be because they are studying for a second degree, or couldn’t start on time because of reasons. This would be an exception.

  8. **Very** common.

    The average university student in Switzerland is 25.9 years old. [Source](https://www.nau.ch/news/schweiz/fast-zehn-prozent-der-studierenden-will-aufhoren-zu-studieren-66049756). Just for clarity: That’s not the average age at graduation, that’s the average age among all students.

    This counts bachelor and master students but not PhD students (because despite the confusing name they are not students, it’s only the English translation of the term “Doktorand” that contains the word student).

  10. That’s about the average age of starting Uni (Bachelor), maybe even a bit higher. Thank 3 years of mandatory army service for that.

  11. It depends. Most people who go to university are 19 years old, and depending on the length of studies (3 years or 5 years) they usually graduate before they turn 25 years old. But there are people who go to university later or tried studying something but decided to study something else, and of course people who fail and repeat a year, so it’s not really uncommon to find someone who’s 25 years old and who’s still a student. For example, one of the guys who studied with me was 28 years old when he graduated.

  12. Not overly common, but not unusual either. Most people start uni at 17/18, so 25 year olds will likely either gone to college first, they’re doing post-grad or they’ve gone after doing an apprenticeship.

  14. 25 is old? That’s a completley normal age to be in uni. Many, if not most people here don’t start uni right after high school. 1 or even 2 gap years is completley normal which means you’d start uni at 20-21. Also tons of people drop out or start studying something else after several years. I know people in uni who are 30. It’s really not something I would worry about, uni people don’t care much about age.

  15. Not long ago I read that in Italy it’s quite common to get a bachelor’s degree in 4 years and a master’s degree in 3 years. So we can deduce that it’s common to find people who are still studying when they are 25.

  17. Very common. It’s maybe not that common for someone to start uni at 25 but to still be a student at that age is normal. Many (most?) people take more than 4 years to graduate.

  18. Eh, usually people take a break after high school for a year or two, then either start looking for jobs or look for TAFE or University.

  20. In Spain? Almost the most common age. Access is best case 18 years and most “Licenciaturas” use to be 5 years long. So 23 is the very very least age to leave university and that supposing been a hyperfocus student, add whatever to the ecuation and you have 25.

  21. Back in my days (I’m 41), we had 13 years of school in Germany (now 12 or 13, depending on where you live), then one year of military or civil service for boys (since continued). Plus it’s not uncommon to have to repeat one year at school at some point.

    Then the official time for most university degrees was 9 semesters (bachelor’s degrees had just started back then and were not that common yet), in reality most people took around 11 semesters (internships and semesters studying abroad makes everything take longer)

    So if you add that all up, graduating at 25-27 was not at all uncommon. I graduated couple of days after my 26th birthday.

    ​

    Today, different factors certainly have brought the average age down a bit, but graduating at 25 is still not uncommon

  22. You can find them but they are exceptions since most start uni or college right after high school but you can find some who did years twice, took a year for thesis, changed degrees. But age doesn’t really matter that much we had people in our student union that were way older and I only knew way later

  23. Let’s not forget masters degrees, mature students are very common even in bachelors (there were 4 people over 30 on the course I did).

  24. Gap years is unfortunately not very common in France, so having a little void in your CV between high school and uni would be saw rather negatively than positively. Though there are people in their 25, 26, 27 etc starting studies in uni and it’s ok, but it’s not easy for them to hang out with people younger than them.

    The only one exception are business school which are expensive but promote a gap year usually and lot of experiences abroad or in associations each year to help the student to find out what he wants to do later

  25. Very common. People in Germany usually start uni at 18-22. I was kinda old when I started wth 28, but there were a lot of people in my semester older than me.

  26. That all depends on what your path is. Some people only start studying at 20, so to then be still studying at 25 is normal. And some studies may take quite a while, if you want to be a doctor for example I think it can take you 7 years, so even if you start at 18 you’ll be 25 when you’re done.

  27. Normally you’d start at 17 or 18 for a 3-5 years study, so you’d graduate at 20-23 years old. However, it is very common for students to struggle and not go straight to graduation. A lot of people start a study but then change their minds after 1 or 2 years and study something else. There are also a lot of students who fail quite a few subjects and end up taking 1 or 2 years longer than they’re supposed to.

    I remember seeing a list of all students who took the same 3rd year course as me, and over half of the student codes didn’t start with ‘017’ (which would indicate that your first year at university was 2017, which would be the normal thing for a 3rd year course in 2019).

    So while it isn’t the standard, it’s definitely not uncommon.

  28. Extremely common.

    It often depends on what field you study in. Some studies are only 4 years (bachelor + master) while others are nearly 7 years or more (fancy things like medicine or law) so you’ll almost always find people over 25 in those.

    Even for people who do ‘smaller’ studies it’s common to continue for a year or two – three afterwards.

  30. Well, pretty much, ages are extremely various. I’m 16 but some people in my promotion are 21 already (I’m in 1st year) so that sounds totally plausible to have 25 years old students.

    Though at 25 you’re expected to be in doctorate and be about to finish your studies. Apparently we are one of the countries who study the less and go more quickly to work.

  32. I am 24, in a year I will graduate so that should count for something? Also it is unusual or uncommon. Like 40% of students or less are above 25

  33. Uncommon, there’s usually a story behind it.

    I graduated when I was 21 (10 years of school and 5 years of university), if I had stayed for a master’s degree I would’ve been 23. Add one more year for a later school start, 24.

    Someone aged 25 is usually one of these:

    – getting a second degree
    – getting a master’s degree after getting some work experience
    – getting a bachelor’s degree after getting a vocational degree plus some work experience

  34. Super common, the average starting age for university students here is almost 24 anyway.

    Firstly Icelanders don’t finish high school until 19 or 20 usually and in reality it’s often much later as people like to take time out of study to get real life work experience and decide their path a bit better.

    Interestingly its also true that we take a lot longer to complete degrees than some countries, which I think is partly down to many students balancing work and family (a third of students are also parents) so the average graduation age is closer to 29.

    We take our time over here it seems.

  35. As you are 19 when you graduate high school and it takes 5 years for a masters degree and 6 for a basic medical degree, 24-25 is the earliest people graduate. But a lot of people take a gap year either before bachelors of before masters, take one extra year to complete the studies (free), and/or do a year abroad. So graduating is more often around 25-29.

    A lot of people change their studies after a year or two. Either because they could not get in to where they wanted the first year or because they realised they don’t actually want to do this one. Then there are all these people who do a second degree, either shortly after the first one or in middle age. The world has changed so much, that some degrees from the 80s are pretty much useless as the entire specialization might not exist any more. Some do a random degree in middle age just out of interest etc, not a real need.

    So a lot. In my own masters, just a few were there directly 3 years after high school, half were like 4-5 years after high school and the other half was ca 5-15 years after high school.

    EDIT: IIRK, Estonia has pretty much the oldest students in the EU. [In 2018](https://novaator.err.ee/1104294/eneli-kindsiko-doktorikraad-kaes-aga-miks-ma-peaksin-ulikooli-toole-jaama), 24% or Masters students were 20-24, 31% 25-29, 19% 30-14 and 26% were 35+ (there is an graph in my link, text is in Estonian).

  36. In my country due to the mandatory military service, this is the normal age for students. It is much rarer to find young students. I am almost 25 and I am the youngest in my friend group from university.

  37. The vast majority of people start uni at 17/18 years old in France.
    So most of the people graduate earlier. At 25 you would be expected to be finishing your doctorate.

  38. Resident physicians have double status (student+physician) here in Lithuania, so nearly every young medical doctor up to 30 will obviously be a student.

  39. I think it is telling that official statistics group stundents by age as below 17 then by exact age up untill above 40, however above 40 is a pretty large group. Seems most commonly people enter bachelor’s studies at 19, graduate at 23 and if they go on to masters then they graduate at 25, so it wouldn’t really be unusual as not everyone enters university right after high school and graduates exactly on time.

  40. Australian living in NL with a Dutch GF. I find all of this very interesting. Like a lot of you, my girlfriend finished her masters at 28 and that was considered very normal, even though she took gap years, breaks from studying, had to redo classes etc.

    As an Australian, I found this to be late…I did a 4 year bachelors and was done at 23 as I started at 19. I started working right after graduating. My friends in here in Australia were also graduating around this time.
    Not saying either is better or worse but In my experience I have noticed that it’s more common for Europeans to continue studying towards their later 20s than it is here in Australia.

  41. 25 is a completely average age to be at university. Usually in the last years before graduating from master’s.

  42. A bachelor’s… Not super common. A masters however or anything higher than that, very common. I’m 25 and among the youngest at my masters currently.

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