"So if you're done with college/university (which is when you're around 25-30 y/o in Europe),"
Uh, what? You're done with university (masters) at 22-23. Late 20's when you include PhD.
Uh, what? You're done with university (masters) at 22-23. Late 20's when you include PhD.
You can see a figure from ministry of education here (first figure - it shows the age of the starting student): https://www.dst.dk/pukora/epub/Nyt/2005/NR242.pdf
The title of the chart is translated into "Average age of new students", where the top part addresses bachelors-students from each of the 5 mayor areas (technical, societal etc), while the bottom part of the graph shows the vocational education system here.
After they start, they will use 5 years minimum to get their degrees. Bachelors are worthless in Denmark.
EDIT: I know the first article is from 2004. Here's a 2016 article that states that new students at the University of Copenhagen (largest in Denmark) had an avg. age of 22,7 in 2016, which was a year younger than the avg. age in 2015: https://uniavisen.dk/alderspraesidenter-eller-groenskollinge...
It's true that 10 or 20 years ago it was normal to spend 6 years on a 4 year study. Times have changed. And if they haven't yet in Denmark, they will in time.
Age 2-6: Daycare/kindergarden
6-16/17: Grade School (folkeskolen)
16/17-19/20: High School (gymnasiet)
19/20-20/23: One or two years off where people work/travel/move out from their parents etc. (as you can see, we're close to the 22 year average here)
20/23-25/28: 5 years of university - add one year for the standard extra interships and you have 6 years of university
Fastest possible way: Start school at 5, skip 10th grade, just straight to High School aged 15, finish high school aged 18, straight to university and study for 5 years (fastest possible degree in the regular system), and you're 23 by the time you get out of the system.
Later start in school, potential extra year 10 before high school, something called "højskole" which is potentially another year or so after high school (look up a guy called NFS Grundvig to explain this), conscription/volunteer for the military for some people.
Most long degrees are 5 years from high school to masters, 3 + 2 officially, but you generally don't want just the 3.
Also it's a reasonably common thing for people to get delayed. Failed exams, stress, even babies. Government is looking a lot at how to get people through quickly.