Number of university students in Italy 2022-2023, by discipline and gender

In the academic year 2022/2023, 264,000 students were enrolled in economics programs in Italy. Medicine counted 256,000 enrollments, while 228,000 students were studying industrial and information engineering. On the contrary, only 40,000 undergraduates studied agricultural sciences and veterinary. More than 60 percent of the students studying education, linguistic studies, psychology, medicine, design, law, humanities, and political science were female, while male were a significant majority in disciplines such as computer science, engineering, and sports science. 

Leading universities

In the academic year 2022/2023, 103,000 students were enrolled at La Sapienza University of Rome, largest Italian university. Other universities with more than 70,000 students are the universities of Bologna and Turin. According to the Italian research institute CENSIS, the Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna is the best public university in the country among those with more than 40,000 enrollments. The criteria adopted for the evaluation were based on services, scholarships and taxes, facilities, web services, internationalization, and employment possibilities. 

Growing popularity of online courses

Among the largest Italian universities, an online university ranked at the second place. In fact, over 95,000 students were enrolled at the Pegaso online University in the academic year 2022/2023. In total, in the academic year 2021/2022, 152,000 students chose e-learning for their bachelor studies, while 47,000 individuals were enrolled in an online master course. Recently, the number of students who graduated from an online university constantly increased. In the academic year 2013/2014, 3,900 people graduated from an online university. In 2023, the number of students more than doubled, reaching about 15,700 graduates.