My daughter studies in Italy and here are my observations-The bureaucracy is terrible. She was in a 4 year undergraduate course and as a student you have to renew the resident permit every year. The first year her resident permit process was not too painful since she already had a visa before arriving there. The second year it took us 6 months to get a resident permit renewed in which time she could not travel anywhere and then she had to travel home after 3 months and so she really had the resident permit for only 3 months and then had to go through the whole process again.You need to be prepared to learn Italian. Most people that you would meet in the normal course of life speak only Italian and you need to be prepared to speak Italian if you need anything.The economy is not doing too well so if you have any hopes of being able to work there for some time after your studies, it will be very difficult.On the other hand , the food is amazing and most people are nice ( except any bureaucrat :) )