International mobility of students in Italy and the UK: does it pay off and for whom?

Abstract

More and more European higher education students decide to take part in international student mobility (ISM). However, not much is known about the actual benefits of studying abroad. This paper assesses UK and Italian students’ returns from ISM. Three research questions are addressed. First, does international student mobility increase graduates’ employment probability and postgraduate study uptake? Second, do the returns to ISM differ according to the socio-economic background of graduates? Third, do the returns to ISM vary between two countries with contrasting labour market and education systems? Results, based on propensity score matching, indicate that mobility is positively associated with a higher employment probability. Mobility abroad is likewise linked with a higher likelihood of enrolling in postgraduate studies in Italy. The benefits of mobility in terms of employment do not differ significantly across socio-economic groups. However, mobility is particularly effective in boosting the uptake of postgraduate studies among mobile Italian graduates with a low socio-economic background. In Italy, ISM returns are substantially higher than in the UK, which could reflect that the skills accumulated and the signals sent to potential employers through ISM are greater in Italy.

Erasmus students’ motivations in motion: understanding super-mobility in higher education

“…We know from previous studies that the payoffs from the stay abroad remain higher for students from, e.g., Southern regions (d’Hombres & Schnepf, 2021 ). However, in several interviews, we are able to see how a newly perceived need to distinguish oneself developed precisely through the mobility process; it became refined within a relatively limited period of time, fed by the ability to recognize the possibility of integrating existing abilities with complementary ones and also how to obtain them.…”

In search of valid non-cognitive student selection criteria

“…The most common association with student success is academic success, which is the achievement of desired learning outcomes (Kuh et al 2011). Academic success is commonly measured using the students attained grades or grade-point average (GPA; van der Zanden et al 2018), as well as student retention and degree attainment (Kuh et al 2007;Trapmann et al 2007;Crisp and Cruz 2009;York et al 2015). Within studies on student success, there is a strong focus on success in the first year because most students who drop out do so then (Credé and Niehorster 2012;Fokkens-Bruinsma et al 2020).…”

Study abroad programme participation and subsequent academic performance: evidence from administrative data

“…Finally, while not the direct focus of this paper, it is also relevant to note the larger body of literature that examines the impact of participation in study abroad programmes on subsequent labour market outcomes for students. 3 This includes evidence from Switzerland (Messer and Wolter 2007), Italy (Di Pietro 2015;Sorrenti 2017;d'Hombres and Schnepf 2021), Germany (Netz and Grüttner 2020;Waibel, Petzold, and Rüger 2018), the Netherlands (Van Mol, Caarls, and Souto-Otero 2020), the UK (d'Hombres and Schnepf 2021) and cross-country analysis within Europe (Rodrigues 2013;Jacob, Kühhirt, and Rodrigues 2019). In general, these studies find positive and significant wage and employment effects of participating in study abroad programmes, with the exception being Van Mol, Caarls, and Souto-Otero (2020), who find no difference in labour market outcomes, in terms of monthly wages or duration of education to work transitions, between graduates that were mobile and those that were not.…”