Most Italian universities have long been part of the urban fabric in city centers. Students face a severe shortage of accommodation. Their housing crisis is not a niche problem, but rather a symptom of a wider affordability gap that undermines the right to study, delays young people's independence and weakens urban competitiveness.
To address this issue, affordability must be restored in the cities where students live and people work.
That requires a coordinated policy combining an expanded supply of public and regulated student housing, targeted rental regulation and urban planning tools that rebalance value within cities. In short, an approach that uses public leverage where markets currently fail.
This article is part of The Parliament's special policy report "Addressing Europe's housing crisis"
Italian weaknesses
Among European Union member states, Italy ranks second only to Greece for the decline in real wages between 1991 and 2023, with a 3.4% drop compared with increases of 30.4% in Germany and 30.9% in France. While wages for young Italians have stagnated for decades, affordability — measured as housing costs not exceeding 30% of net income — has eroded in the very places where students must live to access quality education and entry-level jobs.
Secondly, the public student housing supply is dramatically undersized: roughly 55,000 publicly supported beds, covering only about 5% of demand. Some public universities use their own funds to support students who, although eligible, are excluded from regional aid programs. The paradox is that this requires diverting resources away from research to cover housing costs.
Most students must rent privately, yet in the eight main Italian university cities only 11% of those renting privately use regulated student contracts, leaving the majority exposed to volatile or excessive rents and poor standards. The average rent for a room is €435 per month, rising to as much as €600 to €700 in major cities.
Affordability first
The recent strategy to expand supply chiefly through private operators — via deregulation, public funding and incentives — has treated student housing as a fast-growing real estate asset class.
Evidence suggests the opposite: Premium "all-inclusive" residences often end up more expensive than rooms in shared private dwellings in the same cities. This risks locking public money into revenue models misaligned with the goal of protecting the right to study. Student residences have become a low-risk opportunity for easy profit, especially since they can be converted into temporary housing for workers.
An alternative path is possible through affordability-first policies and programs. Investments should be rebalanced toward publicly governed or permanently regulated beds, prioritizing cities with the greatest price pressures and the widest equity gaps.
Italy's existing pattern already concentrates new beds in a few northern regions; future allocations should reduce territorial disparities while matching actual demand.
Smarter regulation of the private rental market is urgent in contexts where market pressure is highest. Two low-cost levers offer high-equity gains — expand existing regulated student contracts to bring more of the private market into predictable price ranges, and govern short-term rentals to stabilize long-term supply where touristification and platform dynamics have tightened vacancy rates.
Converting vacant or underutilized buildings, both public and private, is faster than building greenfield campuses on the outskirts of cities and keeps student life integrated into the urban fabric.
Students widely prefer living in apartments and, in regions such as Puglia, a diffused student presence can support urban regeneration. Public participation in land, capital or guarantees should be exchanged for binding rent caps, allocation quotas tied to need-based financial aid and design standards that prioritize quality over amenities that inflate prices.
Better transport can widen the set of affordable neighborhoods accessible to students, but it cannot substitute for near-campus affordability. The aim is to reduce forced commutes caused by price exclusion, turning fragmented initiatives into a coherent framework that delivers a social return on public funds and keeps universities embedded in the life of Italian cities.
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