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Between 2001 and 2005, higher education in Italy went through a considerable process of reform according to the Bologna Process. This paper evaluates the effects of this process on the academic performance of students. We estimate the difference in gradua-tion probability between students who switched from pre-reform university courses to post-reform courses and students who carried on their pre-reform academic career. To this end, we considered a sample of 25,866 undergraduate students enrolled 1 year before the imple-mentation of this policy, a number that was reduced by matching techniques to achieve a balanced sample of 1020 units, thereby allowing a causal interpretation of results. Esti-mates of logistic models on the balanced sample suggest that switching to the post-reform university system increases the probability of completion for younger students. Further-more, higher socio-economic backgrounds of students are positively related to graduation probability, suggesting that the social inequalities are still noticeable when the completion rates of tertiary education are considered.

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