Right to university studies: a Lep will not guarantee it

Article published March 20, 2024 in lavoce.info

Defining Lep is not always a guarantee of service equity. Budgetary constraints may prevent their full implementation. Local governments where needs are highest and financial capacity lowest are asked to make a greater effort.

Lep for the right to university study

LEPs-essential levels of services-are not always a guarantee of equity of services. Their ineffective or incomplete implementation can cause territorial disparities and differences in treatment, often attributable to ability or willingness to pay and thus local wealth.

It happens, for example, in the right to university study (Dsu), a matter of regional competence, but within a framework defined by the state (Law 240/2010). In particular, according to legislative decree 68/2012, the LEP and the related standard requirements should be determined by a joint decree of the Ministry of Universities and Research and the Ministry of Economy and Finance on the basis of a survey to establish the standard cost of maintaining studies, relating to several items: teaching materials, transport, catering, accommodation and access to culture. However, more than a decade after the definition of the regulatory framework, the cost survey has still not been carried out and the Mur continues to set the minimum amount of the study grants by its own annual decree, adjusting the figures of the previous academic year on the basis of the variation of the ISTAT general index of consumer prices for families of manual and clerical workers and the increase in the resources made available by the state. The regions then have ample autonomy over both the amount of the grants and the conditions of eligibility, as well as the amount of the regional tax with which to co-finance the service, which are exploited to varying degrees by the different administrations.

Without the study maintenance cost survey, the financial requirement of the regions is simply calculated as the average of the expenses incurred by them in the previous three academic years. Therefore, the requirement does not have a standard nature, as it should have according to the regulations, but is essentially based on the criterion of historical cost, reproducing annually an imbalance between the amounts allocated to the regions on the basis of the net financial requirement calculated ex-ante by the Mur and the disbursement actually incurred by the latter for the granting of scholarships. (…)

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