Rising lure of studying English-taught degrees in Italy

Interest in studying at Italian universities offering courses taught in English is soaring, according to analysis of the number of pageviews on the study abroad choice platform, Studyportals, for the top 25 study destinations in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA).

Italy’s higher education institutions saw a 45% jump in terms of the number of pageviews for degree courses taught in English and moved from 8th to 4th position among prospective international students using Studyportals’ study abroad comparison website for European universities.

Carmen Neghina, deputy director of the company’s analytics & consulting team, told University World News: “It seems that both European and international students from outside Europe are not going back to their pre-COVID ways of just looking at a few top destination countries for places to study abroad, and we’ve seen a lot of movement among the users of our website.

Looking beyond English-speaking destinations

“More and more potential students are looking beyond traditional English-speaking destinations, such as the UK, and are considering the cost of studying abroad and the reputation of different universities.

“I think Italy is proving attractive for its relatively low cost of tuition fees in many cases, cheaper rents and attractive location to be a student and by Italian universities marketing themselves in terms of the quality of education. After all, 53 Italian institutions are in the Times Higher Education world university rankings.

“Other Mediterranean countries are also seeing an increase in student interest, including Spain and Portugal, and so is Poland,” she said.

The data analysed appears in a new Studyportals’ report, titled Student interest in English-taught programmes – Trends in the European Higher Education Area, which compares the 12 months up to the end of March 2022 with the previous 12 months when many COVID-19 travel restrictions were in place.

Most users of the comparison sites for bachelor and masters degrees taught in English are looking at options for studying abroad in 12 to 24 months’ time, Neghina said.

Identifying best recruitment grounds

“We track relative interest among over 200 million pageviews for all destinations on the Studyportals platform to understand changes in interest for the EHEA in a global context and look at how student interest from European Economic Area (EEA) countries compares to interest from non-EEA countries for each destination to show where the best recruitment grounds are,” she said.

Italian universities are not surprised by the results, with one telling University World News that they saw a 500% increase in applications from international students last year compared to 2020.

Università degli Studi di Messina on the island of Sicily in southern Italy received “over 16,000 applications from non-European candidates who submitted a pre-evaluation request to the University of Messina, through the portal reserved for foreign students last year,” spokeswoman Valeria Ruggeri told University World News.

This compares with just 2,200 applications in 2020 at the height of the pandemic.

Applications last year came from more than 40 countries, including Pakistan, India, Turkey, Russia, Brazil, Canada, USA, Algeria, Morocco, Ghana and Vietnam.

Responding to declining domestic student numbers

Ruggeri told University World News that Italian universities are “no longer just relying on the fantasy of la dolce vita – the good life – and now realise that they must market themselves to the world in response to a reduced domestic student population, a constant brain drain, and diminishing funding for basic programmes.

“While once the only real influx of international students were from privileged backgrounds, coming to study Italian art, language and culture, our universities now understand the importance of internationalisation but have been quite slow to implement any serious recruitment.”

That’s starting to change with the Italian university rectors’ Conferenza dei Rettori delle Università Italiane (CRUI) publishing their ‘Internationalisation of Italian Higher Education Institutions’ strategy in 2018; but, while they circulate examples of best practice and try to create a positive image of Italy’s research and teaching, it is left to individual institutions to recruit international students.

Greater synergy and platform for visas

However, greater synergy between the ministry of education and research, Italian universities and the Italian Diplomatic Authority has led to the launch of the Universitaly website, which provides “information and light marketing of the Italian education system combined with a platform for applying for the study visa”, Ruggeri told University World News.

“This is a big step forward and provides a starting point for entering the Italian university system with information about all university programmes in English, Italian and various other languages.”

Italian universities are also starting to use consulting agencies, particularly in markets in Central Asia, South Asia, China, the Middle East and Latin America.

Some universities, like Messina, which now has 1,200 international students, were slightly ahead of the game, said Giuseppe Lucchese, head of the International Mobility Unit.

“We had a few visionary professors and administrators who were alarmed at the changing demographics in Italy: dramatically reduced birth rate, ageing population and steady brain drain to Northern Europe and the Americas.

“They understood that it was essential to attract international students and fast and launched an aggressive recruiting campaign which resulted in the 500% increase in applications last year from abroad.”

Other Italian universities also say they have been working harder to welcome international students.

But Paolo Pomati, head of communications at Università del Piemonte Orientale in Vercelli in northern Italy and a former president of the European universities’ public relations association, EUPRIO, said: “What is lacking is effective national coordination. The only national plan of which I am aware is the portal ‘Study In Italy’ under the umbrella of the ministry of foreign affairs.”

Expanding degrees taught in English

Mauro Cannone, director of the International Office at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice, told University World News: “Interest in Italian universities is unsurprising, given their high quality and low tuition fees and, in recent years, we have been working harder to welcome international students by offering ever-increasing numbers of innovative degree programmes taught in English, better publicising the study offer and focusing on improving our student services.”

Tuition fees at Ca’ Foscari range from €700 (US$705) to €1,900 a year for their three-year bachelor degrees and from €700 to €2,100 a year for their masters degrees, and non-EU citizens pay the same – or sometimes less, if they gain a scholarship.

To try to avoid too rapid expansion of student numbers with too little student accommodation, a problem that has been widely reported at universities in the Netherlands, Ca’ Foscari University has recently constructed two residences in Venice’s historic centre, while another on the mainland is in progress. “But they may not be enough to satisfy demand,” a spokesperson for the university warned.

Trends in studying in the EHEA

Germany remains the top destination for pageviews on the Studyportals website, but its share of a rapidly growing number of young people using the company’s comparison sites was down 7.6% on the previous year, Neghina reported.

The United Kingdom is in second place, but this is largely due to a 21.4% increase in interest from outside Europe. Pageviews from EEA countries were down by 34.1%, which indicates the struggle UK universities will face at least for the next few years in attracting EU students, particularly to undergraduate degrees as a result of Brexit, as University World News has reported.

The Netherlands is the third-most page-viewed country for potential study abroad students looking for courses taught in English, but the relative rate of growth is slowing down, compared to other countries.

Poland and Portugal both increased their pageviews by around 28%, while the Czech Republic grew by 19.6% and Spanish universities saw an 18% increase.

Nic Mitchell is a UK-based freelance journalist and PR consultant specialising in European and international higher education. Follow @DelaCour_comms on twitter. Nic also blogs at www.delacourcommunications.com.