I've received this screenshot from an old highschool friend. The screenshot is from the book Chi si ferma è perduto, by Marco Malvaldi and Samantha Bruzzone, Sellerio editore.
Loosely translated from Italian, it says:
When I was at university, we're talking about the Nineties, Pisa was more or less alive as a puddle. Now, everywhere you turn there is a restaurant, a bistro, a Japanese-Lebanese fusion. Everywhere there is a pavement there are tables and chairs, and people eating and drinking. Virgil says it's all the fault of the so-called new system: when we were studying, to pass exams you had to study, not collect marks. Then came the new system, the three plus two, the credits. Courses went from being formative to informative. The right to study became the right to a degree. And students from then on had time and the will to go out every evening, not just on Fridays. In short, I enrolled in university a few decades too early. And there I was, in Borgo Stretto, trying to think of that writing on my desk
I was there, back then, and I can confirm: Pisa was more or less alive as a puddle!
But the bit that resonated with me most is another one, where the author writes "Courses went from being formative to informative. The right to study became the right to a degree."
So yeah, I too enrolled in university a few decades too early.