In Italia, there are few graduates and too many students taking longer than the standard duration to complete their degrees: 43.8% take more than three years to graduate

The country report by the European Commission on Italia also includes a substantial chapter on education. It begins with a well-known phenomenon – the chronic shortage of graduates in the 25–34 age group (with Italia at 31.1% in 2025, placing us second-to-last in the EU, where the average is 44.8%) – to offer an original interpretation. It highlights the excessive number of students who are behind in their studies (or have been for too long). As many as 43.8% according to the latest available data (updated to 2023).

The EU Commission attributes the shortage of young people with university degrees to the ‘long time taken to complete a degree’, ‘high school drop-out rates’ (and university degrees, we might add), a ‘low return on education’ and an ‘imbalance between the supply and demand for skills, which has significant implications for youth employment and productivity’. Regarding the 43.8 per cent of university students who have not completed their studies within the standard timeframe, plus a further three years, the document highlights that the EU average stands at 32.5 per cent. A gap of over ten percentage points, therefore, which can be explained to a certain extent by the high double-digit university dropout rates recently reported in the ANVUR report on higher education.

According to Brussels, the Italian higher education system suffers from other problems as well. The list includes: ‘relatively high’ drop-out rates, the lowest employment rate among recent graduates (77.8% compared to 86.7% in the EU in 2024), a poor correlation between qualifications and employment, with 40% working in jobs unrelated to their studies, and the oldest teaching staff in the European Union, coupled with less innovative teaching methods, curricula and use of technology.

The NRRP is expected to help turn the tide; according to the Commission, it ‘has enabled Italia to adopt certain measures to address these challenges’. Once fully implemented, the reform of university degree programmes will allow for greater customisation of the curriculum and better alignment with new skills requirements. But this may not be enough. Hence the call for the Italian government to reform the university system ‘to eliminate disincentives such as the free retaking of exams, the absence of mandatory minimum annual credits and the absence of attendance requirements’. Measures which – according to the report’s authors – could help “reduce dropout rates and delays in graduation”.

Finally, a word should also be said about the issue of resources, which are notoriously limited in our country when it comes to education, as all the latest international reports indicate. For the EU executive, it would be ‘essential’ to link ANVUR’s university funding criteria to ‘student course evaluations and completion rates’. Here, help could come from the exit skills tests (TECO), which were launched on a pilot basis in recent years and which the Agency’s new leadership must now make a permanent feature.