Greece’s Education Ministry will remove over 285,000 inactive students from university records in December, Education Minister Sofia Zacharaki announced this week, according to tovima.com.
Under Law 5224/2025, so-called “perpetual students” – those who have exceeded both the standard study duration and the legally allowed extension – will be permanently deleted from university registers. The reform targets a long-standing issue in Greek higher education: tens of thousands of students who remain enrolled for decades without completing their degrees.
According to ministry data, 83,970 of these students are still listed at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece’s oldest university.
Since the law was introduced, about 30,000 students have submitted applications to finish their studies before the deadline. Those who fail to do so will be automatically deregistered by year’s end. Universities have already begun notifying those affected.
The legislation specifies that students admitted before 2016 will be removed two months after September 2025’s re-examination results are published. While the ministry allows for limited exceptions or extensions, these apply only to students who formally request them within the set timeframe.
At the Athens University of Economics and Business, records still include names of students who first enrolled in 1933 – a striking example of how long the problem has persisted.
Education Minister Zacharaki described the reform as “a clear commitment to the future of Greek universities and to the students who work hard to succeed.”
Source: tovima.com
