Bernini meets with university vice-chancellors, focusing on the right to education and university accommodation

The Minister for Universities and Research, Anna Maria Bernini, addressed the meeting of the Conference of Rectors. There were two main areas of focus: the right to education and university accommodation

With regard to the right to education, during the current parliamentary term, from 2022 to 2026, the Ministry of Universities and Research has allocated 5.3 billion euros to promote access to higher education and the right to education. Of this amount, 3.3 billion is earmarked for investment in student grants, whilst a further 2 billion is allocated to university accommodation. These figures are set out in the Report to Parliament on Law 338 and in the Report on the Right to University Education, which the Minister presented to the Conference of Italian Rectors.

As regards university accommodation, there are two support mechanisms: the ‘traditional’ Law No. 338 of 2000, which provides the structural framework through which the State funds the provision of accommodation places; the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, which has allocated 1.2 billion for 60,000 beds. As regards the first measure, Law No. 338/2000 has been implemented over the years through calls for tenders with varying budgets: €450 million for the first call for proposals, €240 million for the second, €105 million for the third and €135 million for the fourth. The fifth call for proposals, issued in 2021, marks a significant increase in scale: the total funding available now stands at around 851 million euros, more than six times that of the previous call (+530 per cent). Instrument 338 generated a housing supply of 52,597 thousand housing units as of 2019. This figure fell to 50,400 in 2022, before reversing the trend from the following year to reach a peak of 56,798 accommodation places in 2024. The availability of accommodation places will also essentially double with the completion of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), which will lead to the creation of 30,000 places already this year, to which a further 30,000 places will be added through the MUR-CDP call for proposals in 2027.

In the 2024/2025 academic year, the coverage rate for eligible students stood at 99.8 per cent, with a total of 299,618 scholarships awarded. This figure – as the Minister reported during the meeting – has risen steadily since the start of the parliamentary term, rising from 244,171 grants in 2020/2021 to the current figure of around 300,000, an increase of +22.7 per cent. In terms of expenditure, however, the figure has risen from €307.8 million in 2020 to €708 million in 2025, an increase of over 130 per cent. This extraordinary financial commitment to student grants – which peaked in 2024 at €882 million – was facilitated by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) but also supported by national resources, which have been rising steadily since 2021. The State Supplementary Fund, in fact, rose from €216.8 million in 2016 to €557.8 million in 2026, an increase of over €341 million, equivalent to 157 per cent. The Ministry of Universities has also set increases for the amounts of the grants and for the ISEE thresholds applicable to them. As regards grant amounts, the new thresholds applicable for the 2026/2027 academic year are €7,171.11 for students living away from home, €7,171.11 for commuters, and €2,890.16 for students living on campus. These figures have risen sharply over recent years. Indeed, when comparing these amounts with those for the 2022/2023 academic year, there has been an increase of €1,013.37 per year for students living away from home, over €592 for commuters, and €408.41 for students living on campus.