This Briefing charts the progress of young people through university: (1) What difficulties do they encounter in the transition from school to university study?; (2) How many persist in their studies and graduate?; and (3) What are the benefits of university study? It also examines the issue of demand for university places: How many young people who apply to go university do not receive an offer of a place, why, and what do they do instead? This briefing highlights include: (1) Just over 80 per cent of university entrants are expected to complete a university qualification; (2) Higher tertiary entrance scores are associated with higher levels of course completion; (3) Indigenous Australians who enter university are considerably less likely than other students to complete a qualification; (4) Family socioeconomic background does not impact on course completion, net of other factors; (5) The most common difficulties reported by first year university students are ones of time pressure and achieving balance between study commitments and other aspects of life; and (6) University graduates are more likely than other young people to secure full-time employment and to have higher status jobs and higher earnings, but university study does not appear to protect against unemployment. (Contains 4 tables and 2 figures.) [Funding for this document was provided by the Australian Education Systems Officials Committee (AESOC) through the National Fund for Educational Research.]