Italy has an education problem though. Only 1 in 10 have a higher education diploma. Among the 30-34 year olds, it's 20%, but this is still less than half what most northern European countries have (Ireland is top with 50%). [Source: IMF & Eurostat via my newspaper today.]
Italian university is... complicated. There are areas of excellence -- medicine, architecture, even engineering (!) -- but a lot of undergraduate courses are expected to run for more than 5 years, and that's a very long time for non-STEM stuff. The average length is much lower in other countries, and the format much more flexible.
And I say this as a serial drop-out who now lives abroad.
