3 - Private higher education in Italy

Abstract

In this chapter we describe the main features of private higher education (HE hereafter) in Italy, adopting a twofold comparative approach: (1) we compare private universities, which are a minority in the Italian case, with the public universities; and (2) we briefly explore the internal variation within the private HE sector. In pursuing these comparisons, we try to provide the reader with a broad picture of the similarities and differences across types of institutions in the Italian higher education landscape. In the next section we describe the main trends in the size of private HE in the last decade. In the third section, we discuss the main legal features characterizing the Italian university system, with a focus on the distinction between private and public education. Then, in the fourth and fifth section, we describe two features that may concur to the quality of the learning processes, namely the academics (professors and researchers) and the tuition fees. In the sixth section we provide a description of the variation within the private sectors, and we identify four main types of private institutions, which are characterized by different institutional profile and educational supply. The seventh section uses micro-level data on recent cohorts of Italian graduates to compare the student intake of public and private institutions, while the successive section focuses on graduates’ occupational outcomes. The last section provides a rigorous test of the effect of graduating from a private institution in order to assess whether it conveys substantial and significant advantages in the labor market, 3years after graduation.