Academic expectations and university enrolment of migrant-origin students in Italy: Evidence by migrant generation and origin group

Background: As second generation grow up in Italy, understanding how academic expectations translate into actual university enrolment is crucial for assessing future integration prospects, labour market success, and social mobility. Objective: Adopting a longitudinal perspective, this study investigates the match or mismatch between students’ academic expectations and subsequent university enrolment among students in their final year of Italian high school in 2015, focusing on differences by migrant generation and origin group. Methods: The analysis uses a unique dataset linking the 2015 Integration of the Second Generation survey conducted by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) to university enrolment records for the academic years 2015/2016, 2016/2017, and 2017/2018 from the Ministry of University and Research. Multinomial logistic regression models analyse the association between students’ expectations–enrolment outcomes and migrant generation and origin group. Results: Results show that (1) among students with similarly positive academic expectations, migrant-origin students are less likely than their Italian classmates to enrol in university; (2) differences emerge by migrant generation; and (3) patterns across migrant groups are largely similar, with only limited exceptions. Conclusions: The findings reveal that migrant-origin students face greater difficulties in translating academic expectations into actual university enrolment, particularly among those who arrived in Italy at older ages, with similar variations by origin group. Contribution: By jointly analysing academic expectations and realised university enrolment, this study provides new national-level evidence on the (mis)match between expectations and outcomes among Italian and migrant-origin students, while also focusing on migrant generation and origin group. The findings highlight the importance of targeted support during the school-to-university transition to reduce mismatches between expectations and enrolment, particularly for migrant-origin students.