Many of the approximately 180,000 students who attend Milan’s universities live outside its Municipality. Some of these students reside permanently in Milan during the academic year and are able to attend classes regularly. Others would very much like to be in the same position, but do not have the financial means necessary even for a room, let alone an apartment.

These, of course, are students who live outside the Milanese metropolitan area and who cannot therefore reach their university every day by means of public or private transportation.

As a rule, a university system should not admit students who cannot attend regularly, and in any case it should not be a matter of doubt that the regular attendance of university courses leads to the best educational outcome in the shortest time.

The majority of enrolled students should, therefore, throughout the academic year, be able to live on the university site itself (or in its immediate surroundings). This is notoriously not the case in Italy.

Every university should thus ensure by means of the University Institute for the Right to Study, individual initiatives, and interventions on the part of public bodies and of foundations, that all students who so wish can regularly attend university.

This is even truer for Milan’s universities which have in fact established a complete local university system and which could reasonably be expected to seek a common response to what we may term manifest and latent requests by students for accommodation.