Abstract
The mobility of university students in Italy has been framed as a phenomenon linked to so-called intellectual migrations and as a subset of the historical and consolidated internal migration path explained in terms of South–North trajectory. This study describes the most important mobility trajectories of students across macro-areas and disciplinary fields, and then evaluates, using a multilevel logistic regression model, the factors that encouraged student cohort, who were enrolled in a degree program in the academic years 2014–2015, to move elsewhere from the Campania region. Beyond fixed and interaction effects related to the students’ personal characteristics, the model included possible random effects linked to the high schools attended by the students to capture the possible influence of the local context on migration choices.
Highlights
The mobility of university students in Italy has been framed as a phenomenon linked to intellectual migration and as a particular subset of the historical and consolidated internal migration path in Italy, which shows the well-established South–North trajectory
Concluding remarks The empirical evidence discussed in this study suggests that individual characteristics and high school as explanatory variables affect the students’ migration choices in the Campania region
As the data clearly showed, students are attracted to high-quality universities located in the central-northern regions especially when they want to enroll in a master’s degree program, whereas the probability that a student after earning a diploma will move to enroll in a first-level degree is less affected by such motivation linked to high-reputation institutions
Summary
The mobility of university students in Italy has been framed as a phenomenon linked to intellectual migration and as a particular subset of the historical and consolidated internal migration path in Italy, which shows the well-established South–North trajectory. Students are attracted to geographic areas and universities with a high reputation, and sometimes, enrollment in a university located outside of the region furthers social stratification Within this scenario, we consider mobility flows of a cohort of students who reside in the Campania region who are enrolled as freshmen in a bachelor’s degree program, in or outside the region, in the academic years 2014–2015. In Italy, recent studies have shown that the most relevant and growing student mobility flow is from the Southern to the Central-Northern regions (Columbu et al, 2020; D’Agostino et al, 2019; Enea, 2018; Genova et al, 2019; Pitzalis & Porcu, 2015; Santelli et al, 2019) These studies focused mainly on the determinants of the probability of high school students moving to other locations to attend a bachelor’s and/or a master’s degree program. The regions with the lowest values are in the South and the Islands: Sardinia (0.3%), Calabria (2.2%), Apulia (4.9%), Sicily (5.0%) and Campania
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
