Thesis Observatory 2026: how students in Rome graduate

Since 2020 we estimate we have printed and bound about 6,000 theses in Rome's Prati district. Of these, 3,251 orders are recorded in our system with cover, copies and price details: they are the basis for the figures below, updated to 30 September 2026. The result is a concrete portrait of how students graduate, from the colour of the cover to the month of the defence.

If we had to picture the "typical" thesis cover, it would be blue: one copy in three, by far the most requested colour. Burgundy comes second, then green and red. Many choices follow the faculty tradition or the university colour, but no rule imposes them.

Cover colour (% of the 3,700 copies with recorded details):

• Blue — 33.9%
• Burgundy — 19.7%
• Green — 17.3%
• Red — 10.7%
• Pearl white — 8.7%
• Black — 3.4%
• Beige — 2.7%
• Others (lilac, pink, powder blue) — 3.1%
• Not specified — 0.5%

For the title on the cover gold wins by more than two to one: 61.7% of copies against 26% for silver; the rest is split between bronze (6.2%) and coloured foils. The most requested cover is the faux-leather hardback (47.9% of copies), followed by eco-leather (20.1%), cloth (15.8%) and the plain-coloured Modern (13.1%).

For the inside we only look at online orders since 5 May 2026 (272 orders), because they are the only ones where customers choose double-sided printing and paper themselves and the PDF is analysed page by page:

• 54% print double-sided;
• 19.6% have the whole thesis in black and white; in the others, colour pages are 18% on average: charts and images, not whole chapters;
• four in five (79.8%) stick to standard paper, the rest choose a heavier one;
• one in five (21.3%) chooses rush printing, with the thesis ready in 2 hours.

Graduation has its seasons. The highest peak is October, then July; November and December stay above 10%, May and March just below. The month when almost no one graduates is August: 1.1% of orders, because between holidays and closed universities the defences stop. Dates are order dates, usually a few days before the defence.

Thesis orders by month (2021-2025, 2,283 orders, full years):

• January — 4.0%
• February — 5.5%
• March — 9.9%
• April — 6.2%
• May — 10.0%
• June — 8.9%
• July — 12.3%
• August — 1.1%
• September — 4.8%
• October — 15.9%
• November — 10.4%
• December — 11.1%

The question every student asks first. A thesis printing and binding order costs € 60 on average, with a median of € 44: half of the orders cost less than that. The price is per order, all copies included; divided by the copies it comes to about € 34 per copy (median € 32). The gap between average and median comes from the "extra" orders: many copies, lots of colour pages, premium covers.

Four factors set the figure: number of pages, number of copies (1.8 per order on average: 1.7 online, 2.0 in store), share of colour pages and type of cover. That's why two theses can cost one twice as much as the other. Prices include VAT.

Update: data closed on 30 September 2026, recalculated on 10 October 2026 (the first version, from June, stopped at 30 June and contained some figures we could not reproduce: we have corrected or removed them).

Where the numbers come from. Paid thesis printing and binding orders recorded in the GUUG system: online since November 2020, in store since March 2026. Cancelled or refunded orders, payment links and generic printing are excluded. Each figure has its own base:

• colours, foils and covers: 3,700 copies from 2,024 orders with recorded details; percentages are of copies;
• copies and cost: 3,251 orders (cost on 3,248 with a recorded amount), VAT included, per order;
• seasonality: 2,283 orders from the full years 2021-2025, by order month;
• pages: 650 theses whose PDF was analysed by our system, May-September 2026;
• double-sided, black and white, paper, rush: 272 online orders from 5 May to 30 September 2026, the only ones where these choices are recorded reliably.

The roughly 6,000 theses since 2020 are our own estimate, including the shop before orders were recorded in the system; it is not a count. These are aggregated, anonymous statistics: no personal data is involved.

Are you a journalist, blogger or student who wants to cite these numbers? You're welcome to. We only ask you to credit the source with a link to this page. Ready-made citation: Source: GUUG Thesis Observatory 2026 — www.guug.it/post/osservatorio-tesi-2026. For additional data, a high-resolution chart or a comment, write to us at stampa@guug.it.