Degree-Level Determinants of University Student Performance

Although features of the higher education degree programmes in which students are enrolled are likely to have an impact on their academic careers, primarily because of data limitations, research has mainly focused on individual, household and higher education institution drivers of student performance. To fill this knowledge gap, this chapter presents a study using administrative data on the complete supply of higher education degrees in Italy during 2013–2018 to carry out an analysis of the degree-programme determinants of university student performance, as measured by the National Agency for the Evaluation of the University System and Research (ANVUR) ‘quality’ indicators. After controlling for detailed degree subject–geographic macro-area fixed effects, our analysis uncovers several significant degree-programme predictors of university student performance, including the degree’s type of access (i.e. selectivity), language of instruction, composition of the teaching body, percentage of teachers in ‘core’ subjects, teachers’ research performance (for master degrees) and university spatial competition.