Speaking on a panel about the economic impact of international students and graduates on host countries at the NAFSA conference 2024, Italy’s former education minister urged delegates to adopt a balanced and unified approach to attracting international students.
“We need a kind of balance; we need more educated students, but in the meantime, we don’t have to be too jealous,” Professor Francesco Profumo told NAFSA delegates.
“Europe needs to establish a standard model to really understand what we can do to attract more students while also giving them positive feedback to go back to their home countries because improving the quality of life there is the best investment they can give.”
Of approximately 800,000 children who were born in Italy in 2004, some 500,000 graduated from Italian secondary school last year, Profumo explained.
Of these students, 300,000 will register at university in Italy and 60% will go on to graduate.
180,000 students – 22.5% of the initial 800,000 – will become university graduates.
22% of Italians born in 2004 will go on to become university graduates
Professor Francesco Profumo
In comparison, as of 2021, 47% of adults in the UAE had at least a bachelors degree, followed by Lithuania (38%), the US (38%) and the UK (37%).
Italy’s diminishing domestic student population is being further fuelled by the country’s rapidly declining birthrate.
After Japan, Italy is the oldest population in the world and, since 2004, the annual number of babies born in the country has more than halved, with 370,000 born in 2023.
While other countries such as Canada, Australia and the Netherlands are limiting international student numbers, Italy is welcoming overseas students to fill the gaps in its higher education system.
In the past decade, the number of overseas students in Italy increased by 67%.
The increase is closely related to wider patterns of migration, with 50% of students from Asia and 30% from Africa. Yet the greatest number of international students in Italy come from Romania, with 11,239 in total.
According to Profumo, the country needs to modernise its universities and make the most of “the flows of people coming from all over the world who want an education”.
Education is the priority for this age and education has to be global
Professor Francesco Profumo
“There are many contradictions in the attraction of international students and the promotion of higher education institutions is nowadays related to the demographic decline and the constant growth of the shortage of highly qualified personnel.
“It’s an essential goal for Italy and Europe and we must now focus on enabling these new generations to constantly upskill and reskill, also in their countries, thus being always ready for the new and changing demands of the labour market,” Profumo wrote on LinkedIn
“Education is the priority for this age and education has to be global,” he told delegates.
