Rising lure of studying English-taught degrees in Italy

Interest in studying at Italian universities offering courses taught in English is soaring, according to analysis of the number of pageviews on the study abroad choice platform, Studyportals, for the top 25 study destinations in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA).

Italy’s higher education institutions saw a 45% jump in terms of the number of pageviews for degree courses taught in English and moved from 8th to 4th position among prospective international students using Studyportals’ study abroad comparison website for European universities.

Carmen Neghina, deputy director of the company’s analytics & consulting team, told University World News: “It seems that both European and international students from outside Europe are not going back to their pre-COVID ways of just looking at a few top destination countries for places to study abroad, and we’ve seen a lot of movement among the users of our website.

Looking beyond English-speaking destinations

“More and more potential students are looking beyond traditional English-speaking destinations, such as the UK, and are considering the cost of studying abroad and the reputation of different universities.

“I think Italy is proving attractive for its relatively low cost of tuition fees in many cases, cheaper rents and attractive location to be a student and by Italian universities marketing themselves in terms of the quality of education. After all, 53 Italian institutions are in the Times Higher Education world university rankings.

“Other Mediterranean countries are also seeing an increase in student interest, including Spain and Portugal, and so is Poland,” she said.

The data analysed appears in a new Studyportals’ report, titled Student interest in English-taught programmes – Trends in the European Higher Education Area, which compares the 12 months up to the end of March 2022 with the previous 12 months when many COVID-19 travel restrictions were in place.

Most users of the comparison sites for bachelor and masters degrees taught in English are looking at options for studying abroad in 12 to 24 months’ time, Neghina said.