Study in Italy

Brief Background: Art and culture play a very important role in a country where beauty, design, good taste, and fashion are an everyday imperative. Italy’s charms—a diverse landscape, an immense cultural and historical legacy, iconic and historic sites, incomparable cuisine, an impressive history of inventions and discoveries—are attractive to tourists and international students. It boasts the greatest number of UNESCO world heritage sites of any country and is also home of the oldest European university—the University of Bologna, which was established in 1088. This, coupled with high quality university education, makes Italy an ideal place for living and studying.

The Italian education system is composed of 127 universities, 14 national research centers, and 145 higher education institutions in arts, dance, and music (referred to as alta formazione artistica e musicale or AFAM). The 2019 Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranked 27 Italian universities among the top 500 universities in the world. According to the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research, approximately 100,000 international students were pursuing degree programs in 2017-2018. Italy is the second leading destination country in the world for US students studying abroad, only after the UK, according to IIE’s 2019 Open Doors Report. In 2017-18, 37,000 US students studied in Italy for academic credit.

Italian universities use the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS), which is designed to facilitate international mobility within different educational systems. It is a central tool in the Bologna Process, which aims to make academic credits more easily transferable between different national education systems. Italy is also part of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), the result of collaborative efforts of 48 countries to reform higher education on the basis of common key values.

For participating countries, the main goal is to increase staff and students’ mobility and to facilitate employability. International students enrolled in Italian universities benefit from these policies.

Good to Know: Bachelor’s degrees are known as laurea, or first cycle degrees, and last three years. A high school diploma is the common requirement for admission to a first cycle degree. Students who are interested in continuing their studies can pursue a master’s degree or laurea magistrale, which may be required for work in certain fields. These programs typically last two years.

For some subjects (i.e., law, medicine and surgery, veterinary science, dentistry and dental prostheses, pharmacy, chemistry and pharmaceutical technology, architecture, building engineering, and primary education sciences) there is a common study path without division between bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Called a single cycle master’s degree (laurea magistrale a ciclo unico), such programs can last from five to six years depending on the subject. To be admitted, students need to have a high school diploma and meet other subject-specific criteria. For example, applicants for medicine, veterinary science, and dentistry (which are numerus clausus programs—a process used to manage enrollment size), must pass a national exam that can be in Italian or English, and which takes place on the same day and time at all Italian universities. The results are valid at the national level.

Students interested in arts, music, dance, and theater can apply to AFAM institutions to acquire knowledge of artistic methods and techniques. As at universities, AFAM students spend three years to get a first level academic diploma and two years for a second level academic diploma.

Most courses are taught in Italian, but many courses are also offered in English. An international student can choose to apply to a course fully taught in English or fully taught in Italian. Applicants to English courses may be required to submit an English proficiency certificate. For courses taught in Italian, international students have to pass an Italian language exam to be admitted. Visit the Lingua Italiana website for additional information on language certification.

Academic Calendar: Depending on the institution and program, the academic year is generally divided into two semesters: the first one starts in October and ends in February (with a break for Christmas and New Year’s), and the second one starts in March and ends in September (with a break in August for summer holidays). Each semester, a certain number of weeks are devoted to lessons and the other weeks are dedicated to exams. Students are required to take an exam at the end of each course, which may be written and/or oral. The length of exam sessions may vary among universities, but they are usually held in the months of January-February, June-July, and September.

Search: For more information about the availability of university courses taught fully in English, enrollment requirements, and visa information, please visit the following websites:

• Universitaly run by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research
• Study in Italy run by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation
• Uni-Italia, an association that promotes academic study in Italy

Apply: Applications are made directly to each institution. Deadlines, required documents, language certificates, etc., can vary across Italian institutions. Some may require students to participate in an interview using Skype or another online communication tools.

Medicine, veterinary science, architecture, health care professions, and primary education sciences are courses of study with restricted admission because the number of applicants is greater than the number of spots available in the course of study. Each year, the Italian Ministry of Education establishes a quota for the number of international students who can be admitted.

Deadlines: Each institution/program sets its own deadlines, so students should check each university’s website.

Application Fees: It is common for higher education institutions to charge an application fee—typically several dozen euros. The amount varies by institution.

Admission Requirements: To be admitted to an Italian university, international students have to demonstrate academic eligibility for university study in their country of origin. Examples include a high school diploma or an IB diploma. Students can apply before completing high school, but will need to submit the official, original documents once they are received.