LOYALTY E ATTRATTIVITÀ DELLE LAUREE MAGISTRALI. IL CASO DELL’UNIVERSITÀ DI PAVIA

The aim of this contribution is to report on the main results on the attractiveness of the Master’s degree programmes at the University of Pavia. The analyses conducted show many strengths and numerous areas of attractiveness in the university’s postgraduate academic offer. Some degree programmes are considered peaks of excellence, such as the Master’s degree programmes in Digital communication and in Experimental and applied biology, which both rank third nationally in terms of number of students enrolled. Flow analysis indicates that failure to enrol in Master’s degree programmes by UNIPV graduates is often counterbalanced by the number of incoming students from other universities and that actual drop-outs are documented only in few courses. The orientation events were very effective for internal graduate students, as 3 out of 4 enrol in postgraduate programmes. Some students do not participate in the events because they have already decided to further pursue their academic career within the same university. Despite the positive factors listed above, the analysis has brought to light some critical areas, which require the identification and adoption of ad hoc strategies. The orientation events are effective for one out of 4 incoming students from other universities, suggesting that there is still ground for improvement in engaging these students. Furthermore, Master’s degree programmes with declining enrolment rates are often in strong competition with Milan. In particular, the Engineering programmes compete with the Polytechnic Universities in Milan and Turin. The use of data-driven approaches is increasingly necessary to monitor and identify critical and success factors linked to the progress of university students.