| Abstract: |
As in much of Europe, and in the particular context of the Bologna Convention
on tertiary education, the Italian university system has experienced
substantial reform in recent years, the major aims of which include increasing
the participation, progression and retention rates of students in higher
education. Reform has reduced the length of undergraduate degree programmes to
three years with the intention that students should be able to graduate at an
earlier age than in the past, in line with graduates from other European
countries. This paper offers a first econometric analysis of student
withdrawal and progression three years after the introduction of major reform.
We use administrative data on students of two Italian universities in a probit
model of the probability that the student drops out, and an OLS model of
student progression. Our analyses suggest that, notwithstanding the reforms,
the drop-out (withdrawal) rate is still very high and only a small proportion
of students are likely to complete their studies within the institutional
time. In particular, we find that differences in students’ prior educational
background and performance have remarkably large effects on their withdrawal
and progression probabilities. We infer from our results that poor retention
and completion rates of Italian university students are unlikely to improve
without further significant institutional change. |