That's a big point of discussion, yes. And there is some worry that there might be some hamfisted pressure to shove everyone through university as fast as possi

That's a big point of discussion, yes. And there is some worry that there might be some hamfisted pressure to shove everyone through university as fast as possible and hand out degrees, which would be counterproductive. I don't think that's going to be the main push, but it's something to watch out for, given as you say artificial targets. But, I somewhat misspoke: the goal is not to have 50% have specifically bachelor's degrees, but 50% complete some form of accredited tertiary education, which includes vocationally oriented degrees (currently a pretty small proportion, but makes the gap to 50% less than it would be if they weren't included). The current numbers (for young people, typically age 25-34) are approximately: ~65% of people enter university, and 1/2 of those graduate (~32% of the population). Also, 25% (some the same people) enter tertiary vocational education, and 1/3 of those graduate (~8% of the population). Some people complete both, so the total is a bit less than 32+8, but overall ~38% of young people are attaining some kind of tertiary education. Current trends are that vocational education is roughly flat (in both enrollment and completion rates), but university education is massively increasing (also, in both enrollment and completion rates). It used to be very common to attend university a few years and then do something else, with very low completion rates (only 1/4 of enrolled students eventually graduated as of 1995), perhaps partly because it's free to try it out for a year or two. This seems to be becoming less common, with completion rates now on par with the U.S. and Canada (1/2 completing as of 2010). I haven't read too much on the current policy, but I believe further increasing university enrollment rates, to maybe closer to 80% rather than 65%, is one part of it. There are also some efforts to improve completion rates of vocational degrees to be closer to the university rates (1/2) rather than the current ones (1/3). Possibly also to get more people into vocational programs, especially people from the category of "young people not currently in work or education". Data on the current rates and trends from this big PDF: http://www.oecd.org/edu/highlights.pdf http://www.oecd.org/edu/highlights.pdf