Summary

Tertiary Education Outcomes and Qualification Completions is one of five reports, replacing Profile & Trends:  New Zealand's Tertiary Education Sector.  The new Profile & Trends series is being published throughout the year as information comes available.

Tertiary Education Outcomes and Qualification Completions contains data for the year ended December 2014, unless otherwise stated.  The population statistics in this report are from Statistics New Zealand's Household Labour Force Survey and the information on qualification completions is derived from returns provided by government-funded tertiary education organisations to the Ministry of Education and to the Tertiary Education Commission.  A list of figures is included at the end of the report.

The report begins with an overview of tertiary education outcomes and qualification completions.  Chapter 2 profiles New Zealanders aged 15 years and over by highest qualification.  The employment advantages and higher earnings of the tertiary qualified are described in chapter 3 and the tertiary education outcomes for young graduates are discussed in chapter 4.  This chapter also includes information on young people, not in employment, education or training.

Chapter 5 focuses on the students who completed a tertiary education qualification in 2014.  The latest course completion rates are covered in chapter 6 and selected statistics from the 2013 Population Census, focused on tertiary education, are presented in chapter 7.

This year's edition of Profile & Trends represents the 17th annual survey of the tertiary education system published by the Ministry of Education.