Across the European Union, young people born abroad remain much more likely to leave education without an upper secondary qualification. In 2025, the early-leaving rate among 18– 24-year-olds was 20.8% for those born outside the Union and 18.9% for those born in another EU country, compared to 7.7% for those born in their country of residence (European Commission, 2026)
Eurostat defines early leavers as young adults who have completed, at most, lower secondary education and have not participated in education or training during the preceding four weeks. The comparison focuses on birthplace, not citizenship. An immigrant may acquire citizenship, while a child of immigrants born within the country is sorted into the native-born group (Eurostat 2026).
The consequences of early leaving are not merely a statistical talking point. The Commission’s Education and Training Monitor associates early leaving with greater risks of unemployment and societal inactivity – a basic need (European Commission, 2026). Some students left the educational path before their migration, so the gap cannot entirely directly attributed to their destination countries; however, these are unfortunate situations that can be remedied via social initiatives.
As reported by the European Commission, these are substantial gaps in educational attainment, revealing a systemic inequality that can breed further gaps in many other areas. The consequences extend beyond simply missing a piece of paper.
This gap raises a question concerning what educational inclusion should look like in reality. The most essential starting point is simply access to a classroom. This, however, is a simplistic view. Socioeconomic and cultural pressures, as well as knowledge of one’s own options, carry considerable weight. This means that educational inclusion should be assessed through students’ ability to continue learning and complete qualifications without hindrance. This requires understanding their previous education, as well as what they need during the transition. Enrolment records do not paint the full picture of whether or not a student has a realistic opportunity to progress and succeed in the environment.
Language and Economic Barriers
Evidence from younger students points towards how migration can overlap with other existing disadvantages. In a sample covering 29 OECD countries, PISA observed that approximately 41% of students coming from an immigrant background were socioeconomically disadvantaged, compared to 21% of students without an immigrant background. In this study, disadvantage is defined as the bottom national quarter of PISA’s own index of economic, social and cultural status. PISA assesses 15-year-old students and identifies students as having immigrant backgrounds when both parents were born abroad, which includes children born in the country of residence (OECD, 2026).
While this average covers 29 OECD countries and is therefore not an EU estimate, the study is relevant to assessing the overlap between immigrant background and socioeconomic disadvantage across the developed western countries included in the study. This report also found that, after accounting statistically for socioeconomic circumstances and home language, science achievement gaps generally shrink. The association points towards the importance of these conditions for education, but does not establish which interventions would close the gap (OECD, 2026).
Other family resources also shape learning conditions. The Commission identifies access to tutoring and supportive home environments as socioeconomic factors that shape the quality of education (European Commission, 2025). Higher disposable income and stable environments are factors that cannot be removed by the educational system; however, this is not an excuse to ignore them, leaving their consequences unchecked, and bleeding into the learning environment and its goals.
Language support is incredibly important for participation in lessons. Eurydice’s 2019 review states that there is a clear distinction between everyday conversational fluency and the academic language used in educational settings (Eurydice, 2019). Without a full grasp of this aspect of the language, students may find it difficult to understand the subject material and demonstrate their knowledge, particularly alongside native-speaking peers. A student may be able to comfortably talk with his classmates, yet silently struggle to interpret a question on an exam or explain their argument completely. Schools should be responsible for assessing language needs within their courses, without assuming that one’s confidence in everyday language removes their need or right to support
The age of arrival is also important. The Commission’s 2025 Monitor identifies a higher risk of early-leaving among students who have recently immigrated to their country of study, compared to those who arrived well before secondary education. Adapting to a new environment, social circumstance, curriculum, and teaching style may affect decisions about further education, especially for teenage, still-developing minds. This makes timely assessment and guidance particularly important and necessary for affected students, although this support may be difficult to access (European Commission, 2025).
Individualised assessment is a necessity when factoring in these circumstances. A teenager who recently immigrated to the country, one who was born locally to immigrant parents, and a young adult returning to the educational path will most likely need different forms of support.
Supporting students through secondary education
Eurydice identifies a practical challenge in organising language provision. As a standard option for supporting students studying in a second language, preparatory classes may offer intensive teaching; however, prolonged separation may restrict contact with other students and slow their progress in the standard curriculum. A workaround for this predicament is to combine language development with subject learning, with a planned transition into mainstream classes. While this surely takes extra effort, it should be a responsibility of the education field, and consequently broader society, to promote the equity these students deserve. The objective should be to create an environment where students can participate in the full educational programme seamlessly with their peers (Eurydice, 2019).
An Italian randomised experiment provides evidence to support another crucial piece of the transition journey. In this study, published in 2022, Michela Carlana, Eliana La Ferrara and Paolo Pinotti examined the tutoring and career counselling services provided across 145 northern Italian middle schools. Specifically, the programme targeted students without Italian citizenship who had strong assessed academic potential, including both foreign-born and Italian-born participants. Being assigned to the programme increased boys’ enrolment in academic or technical upper-secondary tracks by 8–9 percentage points – which was statistically significant. (Carlana et al., 2022).
We can draw from this study that a structured, personalised and well-thought-out support system that targets specific needs and disadvantages can influence educational choices in specific groups. It does not establish an EU-wide reduction in early leaving. The lesson here is to test guidance methods that help students follow educational paths best suited to their abilities and ambitions, while maintaining meaningful choice between academic and vocational routes for student populations whose choices are typically limited by outside factors (Carlana et al., 2022).
Young adults who have already left the educational path should not be forgotten. The Commission notes that returning to an educational environment is uncommon, and reaching former students has proven difficult. Evaluation should follow a student beyond their first placement. It does not suffice for a programme to increase enrolment while ignoring sustained participation and completion, which affect subsequent opportunities. Personalisation requires listening to participants’ needs, which helps establish the support needed to address the problems they encounter in the real world throughout their educational journey.
Access to higher education at Bocconi
In the case of students progressing towards a university education, financial and practical support are areas we must shift our attention towards. Bocconi’s Sustainability Report 2024, published in 2025, describes its Inclusion Programs for refugees and high-potential students facing socioeconomic disadvantage. The programmes cover undergraduate and postgraduate study and provide full tuition waivers, housing, meals and dedicated support (Bocconi University, 2025).
Student volunteering is an underutilised part of this initiative. Volunteers help students understand campus activities and navigate the university services they might need while adjusting to life on campus. This combination is why access to an equal educational environment needs to be assessed from practical angles. A tuition waiver addresses one cost, while housing and meals address other costs that affect attendance and focus. A sense of community and respect contributes a value that transcends the data sheet. Guidance can help a new student understand how to use the resources available, yet these resources should be impactful, practical and provided in a respectful manner that makes a student feel like a part of the community – which is the overall goal of all these initiatives.
Reducing the educational gap requires continuity between early- and late-stage aid. A teenager learning a new instructional language should be able to progress towards their qualification and obtain career advice without the avoidable barriers placed in their way. The measure of success should be whether students can comfortably complete their education, and pursue a wide range of realistic goals that their peers also have access to.
References
1. European Commission. (2026). 2026 Country Report – Germany. SWD(2026) 205 final, 3 June. Annex 13, p. 111, EU comparison figures. 2. Eurostat. (2026). Migrant integration statistics – education. Data extracted 26 June. Definitions of migration status and early leaving. 3. European Commission. (2025). Education and Training Monitor 2025. Comparative report, Chapter 4, sections 4.1.2–4.1.3 and 4.2.1, and note 24. 4. OECD. (2026). PISA 2025 Results (Volume I): Future-Ready Students. OECD Publishing, 8 September. Chapter 2, Figures I.2.21 and I.2.23. 5. European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice. (2019). Integrating Students from Migrant Backgrounds into Schools in Europe: National Policies and Measures. Publications Office of the European Union, pp. 91–92 and 131–132. 6. Carlana, M., La Ferrara, E., & Pinotti, P. (2022). Goals and Gaps: Educational Careers of Immigrant Children. Econometrica, 90(1), 1–29. Section 5.1, Table II and note 11. 7. Bocconi University. (2025). Sustainability Report 2024. Section “Africa Initiative and Support for Refugee Students.” Published 4 November 2025. 8. Bocconi University. (n.d.). Bocconi Social Impact Recognition. Section “Inclusion Programs Support.” Accessed 3 November 2026.