Unequal geographies of the Italian tertiary education system. Mapping the disparities at regional scale

Abstract. In the last decade, the tertiary education system in Italy has shrinked and a larger heterogeneity has emerged among universities located in different areas of the country, with a strong concentration of increasingly scarce resources in a narrow and geographically concentrated number of institutions. The less developed areas, such as those in Southern Italy have been hit the most, in terms of enrolled students, academic staff, financial resources, courses offered.

In this work we investigate these issues by adopting a cartographic approach. We highlight these polarizing dynamics, disentangling the possible causes. We focus, particularly, on the role of new regulatory policies and the funding mechanisms based on performance indicators as producers of inequalities.