More and more European higher education students decide to take part in international student mobility (ISM). However, not much is known about the actual benefits of studying abroad. This paper assesses UK and Italian students’ returns from ISM. Three research questions are addressed. First, does international student mobility increase graduates’ employment probability and postgraduate study uptake? Second, do the returns to ISM differ according to the socio-economic background of graduates? Third, do the returns to ISM vary between two countries with contrasting labour market and education systems? Results, based on propensity score matching, indicate that mobility is positively associated with a higher employment probability. Mobility abroad is likewise linked with a higher likelihood of enrolling in postgraduate studies in Italy. The benefits of mobility in terms of employment do not differ significantly across socio-economic groups. However, mobility is particularly effective in boosting the uptake of postgraduate studies among mobile Italian graduates with a low socio-economic background. In Italy, ISM returns are substantially higher than in the UK, which could reflect that the skills accumulated and the signals sent to potential employers through ISM are greater in Italy.

越来越多的欧洲高等教育学生决定参加国际学生流动性（ISM）。但是，对于出国留学的实际好处知之甚少。本文评估了英国和意大利学生从ISM获得的收益。解决了三个研究问题。首先，国际学生流动性是否会增加毕业生的就业机会和研究生学习的学习率？其次，根据毕业生的社会经济背景，ISM的回报是否有所不同？第三，由于劳动力市场和教育体系的差异，两国间ISM的回报是否有所不同？基于倾向得分匹配的结果表明，流动性与较高的就业概率呈正相关。同样，出国流动与在意大利就读研究生的可能性更高。流动性在就业方面的收益在各个社会经济群体之间没有显着差异。但是，流动性对于提高社会经济背景较低的流动意大利毕业生的研究生学习尤为有效。在意大利，ISM的回报率显着高于英国，这可能反映出意大利积累的技能和通过ISM发送给潜在雇主的信号更大。