Public opinion has by now understood the significance that Milan’s university system holds for the city, with its ten universities, 335 degree courses and 176,000 students. This second investigation into student commuter life conditions completes the picture that has already been sufficiently depicted with the previous investigation into students who are “off site”, i.e. coming from other regions or from abroad.

Because of the very quantity and importance of the information emerging from the analysis conducted over the two academic years 2002/2003 for the off-site students and 2003/2004 for the student commuters, MeglioMilano decided to continue monitoring the city’s capacity to receive students and its improvement in terms of one of its points of excellence.

Of the total of 96,000 commuters, 51,000 reside at a distance such that, for two or three days per week, they are forced to spend almost three hours in the train to stay in the university for five hours. Of these, only 2,000 have found lodgings and a further 15,000 would be willing to reside in Milan if the offer were there and such an offer were affordable.

This fact alone, when added to the potential demand of the “off site students”, brings the unmet need for sleeping accommodation in Milan up to approximately 40,000 – a problem that each university has highlighted for some time, and that Milan today can boldly face; a problem that can not be immediately solved, but whose exact nature must be rapidly understood and responded to with broad-based collaborative efforts. For this, the initial signs seem to be encouraging.

Ensuring that the student spends the years of his or her university life in a pleasant city, has a wide range of financially viable accommodation from which to choose, can decide from a wide range of cultural, sporting and culinary options how to spend an evening – all this is not only an economic investment on the part of Milan for its 176,000 students; it also represents a strategic investment that Milan must make in itself, in order to reinforce its role and image.

This perspective may seem a utopian one, but is nonetheless operational in many cities in the European continent. And here MeglioMilano, in its role as a stimulus and connecting- point, has received the support and cooperation of Milan’s universities, from university chancellors to those directing Institutes for the Right to Study, to the many students encountered. In addition to thanking them, I would like to stress wholeheartedly our organisation’s continuing commitment. Indeed in this area, MeglioMilano has found consensus and willingness to cooperate with many key entities: with the Milan city administration, which has already embarked upon the necessary initial measures, with building investors and land owners, and with banks and insurance agencies.

With all of these a working party has been created, which is an indispensable tool for strategic development, and to which everyone willingly offers their unique skills. It is from these very relationships that further initiatives have already arisen regarding the Milan university system.

With the support of the Milan Chamber of Commerce, one of MeglioMilano’s founding partners, a study has been launched into the financial impact of the university sector on Milan. It will offer precise data of probably unforeseen orders of magnitude regarding what the impact on Milan will be, of the presence of students, some 9000 university teachers, the hundreds of masters degrees, and the creation of laboratories and research centres. The study results, coordinated by the head of our Technical Committee, Professor Roberto Camagni, will be presented by the end of the year.

Another initiative, already under way, called “Prendi in casa uno studente” (hosting a student), aims to provide accommodation for students in the homes of elderly people with evident mutual benefits, with a view to evaluating the methodology applied (forms of guarantee, regular assessments and the initial support of psychologists) in order to extend it way beyond the remit of the current trial. It is principally led with the Politecnico di Milano University in the Bovisa district of Milan, with the contribution of the Italian insurance company, Ras.