10.6092/issn.3034-8544/18768
What does it mean for a city to be a university city? In other words, what impact do universities have on the areas in which they reside? Universities undoubtedly have important direct and indirect effects on local economies. The direct economic effects are driven in large part by the student population. In Piedmont, for instance, a combined total of over 130,000 students are enrolled in the region’s four universities, with 42,000 of them coming from outside the region. That’s roughly the population of a mid-sized Italian town. And according to a 2020 estimate by IRES Piemonte, these 42,000 students spend an average of 800 million euros per year on food, lodging, school supplies, recreational-sports activities, and transportation, determining a substantial economic return to the region. Even more striking is the universities’ indirect economic contribution. According to data from the Rosselli Foundation, universities in the Turin metropolitan area make up the region’s fourth most productive sector in Piedmont in terms of indirect economic impact, ranking just behind the construction, transportation, and agricultural sectors, with a total estimated value of nearly 2 billion euros. The economic advantages of having a university located in the community have not escaped the notice of local administrations, who are eager to encourage the establishment of university programmes not just in large cities, but also in smaller towns.

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Federica Laudisa
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Urbana
Urban Dynamics
Universities as Urban Anchors: Examining the Socio-Economic Impact and Support Dynamics in Italy 
Text.Serial.Journal
https://urbana.unibo.it/
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Keynote
2024-01-25
2023-12-18
2024-01-25
2024-03-22
14-19
Urb
Federica Laudisa
2024/01/25
10.6092/issn.3034-8544/18768
14
IRES Piemonte
3034-8544
1
Urban Dynamics
en
19
Universities as Urban Anchors: Examining the Socio-Economic Impact and Support Dynamics in Italy 
https://urbana.unibo.it/article/download/18768/17484
1
                                                       URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024              14




Universities as Urban Anchors:
Examining the Socio-Economic Impact
and Support Dynamics in Italy
KEYNOTE SPEAKER


Federica Laudisa

IRES Piemonte

laudisa@ires.piemonte.it



What does it mean for a city to be a university city? In other words, what
impact do universities have on the areas in which they reside?
Universities undoubtedly have important direct and indirect effects on
local economies. The direct economic effects are driven in large part by
the student population. In Piedmont, for instance, a combined total of
over 130,000 students are enrolled in the region’s four universities, with
42,000 of them coming from outside the region. That’s roughly the
population of a mid-sized Italian town. And according to a 2020 estimate
by IRES Piemonte, these 42,000 students spend an average of 800 million
euros per year on food, lodging, school supplies, recreational-sports
activities, and transportation, determining a substantial economic return
to the region. Even more striking is the universities’ indirect economic
contribution. According to data from the Rosselli Foundation,
universities in the Turin metropolitan area make up the region’s fourth
most productive sector in Piedmont in terms of indirect economic
impact, ranking just behind the construction, transportation, and
agricultural sectors, with a total estimated value of nearly 2 billion euros.
The economic advantages of having a university located in the
community have not escaped the notice of local administrations, who are
eager to encourage the establishment of university programmes not just
in large cities, but also in smaller towns.
Additionally, the impact of universities extends beyond the economic to
the social fabric of a territory. Institutions of higher education play a
crucial role in the formation of human capital and in shaping the urban
environment. The sort of changes in Milan we heard about in Professor
Balducci’s presentation this morning can also be seen in Turin, where
university expansion has quite literally reconfigured entire areas of the
city. One example of this is the Luigi Einaudi Campus, which was
completed in 2013 and has led to the complete revitalisation and
redevelopment of the neighbourhood known as Aurora. Students at the
University of Padua have gone so far as to coin the slogan: "Without us,
Padua dies!" This phrase reflects just how tightly intertwined the city-


                                                                   Copyright 2024 The Author(s)
                                               This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.3034-8544/18768               Attribution 4.0 International License
                                                        URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024   15




university relationship can become, even to the point of completely
transforming the urban and social landscape. Nevertheless, “town/gown”
relations are not always easy and are frequently marked by mixed
feelings towards the student population.
In a recent EU survey [QS, 2021], international students were asked – and
for the present purposes one can replace “international” with “non-local”
- what they consider to be the five most important factors when choosing
a city to study in. The safety of the city and its being welcoming to
students were ranked in first place, and cost of living in second, with
quality of teaching, recreational opportunities, and affordable housing
following close behind [Figure 1]. In short, the cost of living and of
accommodation are among the top considerations for students when
choosing a town or city in which to study.




         Figure 1| Data Source Provider: EU International Student Survey 2021, QS


So, in Italy, who bears the cost of maintaining university students? It is a
fairly well-known fact that the Italian government provides study grants
and scholarships to defray the costs of higher education. Less commonly
known, however, is that only around 14% of university students in Italy
actually benefit from this form of financial assistance. In the 2021/2022
academic year, that came to approximately 235,000 students out of a total
of 1,700,000. In a uniquely Italian twist, not everyone who satisfies the
economic and merit criteria for government-funded financial aid can
expect to receive any—and here it bears emphasising the word merit,
which is so often overlooked—and the reason for this is the lack of
sufficient funding. Consequently, as can be seen in Figure 2, the number
of students receiving government aid has never caught up with the
number of students eligible for it.
                                                           URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024          16




Figure 2| Number of grant-holders and number of beneficiaries in Italy, 2002/03-2021/22. Source:
                   Office II – MIUR until 2013/14; usta t.miur.it from 2014/1


Government-funded university scholarships are not only few and far
between, but the transfer of funds to students is slow to arrive, meaning
that they often serve mainly as reimbursement (or partial
reimbursement) for expenses already incurred. Grants generally come in
two instalments, with the first half typically paid out between November
and the end of December, which is three to four months after courses
have begun. In some cases, first-year students must satisfy the merit
requirement (earning 20 credits by August 10) before receiving the entire
amount in a single instalment, which could be at the end of the June at
the earliest, or as late as in the autumn. One has to wonder how students
manage to support themselves while waiting for their grant money to
arrive if their families are unable to provide support.
Across the border, in France, government study grants are paid in
monthly instalments, on the 5th of each month, beginning in September
(provided the proper documents have been submitted by the end of
August) or in October. Another advantage of the system of student
financial support in France is that it is managed uniformly nationwide.
In Italy, instead, each of the different educational authorities operates
according to its own set of rules and regulations concerning application
deadlines and disbursements. Consequently, there are over thirty
different financial aid systems, without even counting the region of
Lombardy, where each higher-education institution is responsible for
handling its own students’ financial aid.
The fragmented nature of the financial aid system in Italy makes it
difficult for students to be properly informed about the opportunities
available, and there is no dedicated office responsible for disseminating
this information to high school students. A number of recent studies
confirm how little students know about their right to higher education.
For example, the Region of Piedmont’s Regional Observatory for the
University and for the Right to Higher Education analysed data from
students at two universities in Piedmont during the 2016/17 academic
                                                           URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024            17




year. It was found that 58% of those interviewed who met the eligibility
requirements for need-based financial aid had never even applied for it.
In another study conducted at the University of Udine over three
academic years from 2015/16 to 2017/18, approximately 45% of students
reported being unaware of initiatives supporting the right to higher
education, even though they were already attending university. A student
at a conference in Bologna described his personal experience with
ER.GO, the Regional Authority for the Right to Higher Education of
Emilia-Romagna like this: "My life changed completely after a chance
meeting with a friend, who told me about ER.GO,” he explained. “At the
time, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go to university. I had no idea what I
wanted to do. But when I heard about the opportunity to apply for a
scholarship and a place to live, that’s what I did. It was a pivotal moment
in my life." Stories like this show how information about student aid is
most often obtained through informal channels.
And what about housing costs? How are they covered? All non-local
students who meet the financial and merit requirements for a
scholarship are entitled to a place in affordable student housing.
Currently, 29,000 of Italy’s approximately 97,000 non-local scholarship
holders live in university residence halls, meaning that, on average, one
in three of them benefits from the opportunity of being assigned student
accommodation. However, it needs to be borne in mind that this national
average conceals significant regional variations in the ability to meet
housing demand [Figure 3].




    Fig. 3| Percentage of off-site fellows receiving accommodation, a.y. 2020/21. Note: The
  percentage is calculated by comparing the number of beds occupied by eligible non-local
  students to the number of eligible non-local students. In Molise and Valle d'Aosta, student
            accommodation is not managed by the regional authorities for the DSU.
                        Source: Elaboration on MUR data, ustat.miur.it


We have seen that only 29,000 scholarship holders in Italy reside in
university housing. Nonetheless, the potential supply of student housing
is greater than that. If we include accommodation managed by legally
recognised non-state colleges and university residence halls, there are
                                               URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024   18




roughly 51,000 beds. Still, this pales in comparison to the 175,000
residential places available in France, and 195,000 in Germany. Our
French and German cousins outperform us not only in terms of the
number of available places - which is three to four times that in Italy - but
also in terms of the percentage of students who live in university
accommodation, which is 3% in Italy, 6.5% in France, and nearly 8% in
Germany. Moreover, because student housing in France and Germany is
maintained by local institutions for the right to study (CROUS and
Studentenwerk), average rents are €250-260 per month. In Italy, there is
no rent relief for housing located in university residences or operated by
private organisations.
As another measure to ease the expense of accommodation for non-local
students, the Italian government allows students to claim 19% of their
rental expense as an income tax deduction. Since the maximum
deductible is capped at €2,633 annually, the tax refund amounts to €500
at most, and is, of course, only received the following tax year, after the
rent has already been paid. Yet again, one wonders how much of a
difference such a modest figure can make to a student facing financial
hardship who wishes to attend a non-local university. Given the present
circumstances, it is hardly surprising that a wave of student protests over
the high cost of housing has arisen in many Italian university cities. For
one thing, soaring rents are unaffordable for those with less privileged
backgrounds; for another, the availability of private living options for
non-local students is rapidly diminishing, particularly in popular tourist
destinations like Bologna, Florence, and Padua. This is mainly due to the
large number of flats being converted into bed and breakfasts in recent
years, which has significantly reduced the supply of housing available.
What potential impacts can be expected in the future as a result of the
implementation of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR)?
First and foremost, it is encouraging that the PNRR has acknowledged the
dire shortage of university housing in Italy. To address the issue, the
proposal calls for a significant investment of 960 million euros and aims
to develop housing capacity by adding more than 100,000 beds by 2026,
which means 60,000 additional beds over the next four years. Given that
only 14,000 new beds were created during the fifteen-year period
between 2005 and 2020, the PNRR target almost seems a “mission
(im)possible”. The plan, which consists of two milestones, is indeed quite
ambitious. The first milestone, budgeted at EUR 300 million, envisages
the creation of 7,500 additional beds by December 2022, and the second,
with a budget of EUR 660 million, will add 52,500 more beds by the end of
2026. In practical terms, what does reaching these milestones entail?
Regarding the first milestone, two public calls were issued - in August and
December 2022 (due to the failure of the first call to meet the target) - to
co-finance public or private entities, including partnerships, for the
purchase or long-term lease (at least nine years) of real estate to be used
                                                URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024    19




as university lodging. Currently, over 9,000 beds have been co-financed
with the stated intention of prioritising non-local students. However, it is
unclear how this can be guaranteed in residences managed by private
operators, since they do not have access to the rankings issued by the
authorities for the right to education. Who will be responsible for
verifying that grant recipients receive priority access?
In terms of the second milestone, in September 2023, the University
Housing Fund was established to cover all or at least part of private
operators’ management costs for three years and providing them with tax
breaks. According to the PNRR: “It is based on an innovative and original
design that aims to encourage private subjects to build new university
buildings, by having the MUR cover the costs of managing the facilities for the
first three years.” It is not exactly clear why the plan has been defined as
"innovative and original design" since private investors have been
investing in university housing for years and continue to do so in
response to rising demand and the potential for profit. In fact, the rents
charged by private operators are market-driven, and only some of the
wealthiest university students can afford them.
The key issue that not yet been addressed by any ministerial act as part
of either the first or the second milestone is that of student
accommodation fees. Will students be guaranteed discounted rents for
university housing? And presuming that rents will be controlled for at
least the first three years thanks to the PNRR, what will happen
thereafter? Posterity will be a harsh judge. For genuine innovation would
be to implement solutions that allow our current public support system
to function effectively. Until that happens, students will “vote with their
feet” by enrolling in universities abroad as international students to gain
access to resources that Italy is, unfortunately, still unable to provide.
The loss of human capital is a setback not just to the development of our
cities, but to the nation as a whole.
