ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the widespread assumption that graduates of higher education are especially likely to find unemployment, underemployment or the mismatch between occupation and educational specialization a radicalizing experience. It describes the proposition that graduate unemployment was a serious problem that led to the destabilization of the Italian political system in the 1960s and 1970s. The chapter introduces the Italian discussion on the vexed issue of intellectual unemployment. It overviews the growth of Students populations in Italy in the period covered and finally correlate the degree of unemployment experienced during the period 1968-1977, when social protest in Italy was at its apogee. The parcheggio thesis became sociological folklore in the 1970s and variations on the theme were injected into the rather alarmist discussions of the radicalizing potential of the unemployed graduates of the mass university. Gianni Statera developed a variation on the theme: students of the 'mass' university anticipated the development of labour market imbalances.
