The "Choose" program France za high education', announced last month, aims to end a system of exemptions often used by French universities to make tuition fees for non-EU students the same as for EU students.
Therefore, most non-EU students coming to France in the academic year 2026/27 will have to pay annual tuition fees of €2.895 for undergraduate studies and €3.941 for master's studies. This is an increase of as much as 16 times compared to the previous prices, and it is expected to bring the universities an additional 250 million euros per year. writes DW.
"This proposal represents a worrying step in the commitment to equal access to higher education. By significantly increasing tuition fees for students outside EU, the French government risks institutionalizing a system in which access to education depends more and more on citizenship and financial ability," the European Student Union and the Federation of Student Organizations in France said in a statement.
This reaction reflects France's long-standing position that education should be accessible to all.
Morality and money
However, in a strategy paper on the future of European universities, published this week by King's College London, Professor Christian Gaulier of the Toulouse School of Economics argues that change is needed, given that universities are under increasing pressure and students are increasingly able to choose studies outside their home countries.
"Given the state of public finances, free education removes the only realistic option for financing competitive teaching and research staff salaries. Who even knows that young lecturers in France, after ten years of higher education plus several years of post-doctoral training, have a gross annual salary of around 30.000 euros, while the world's best universities can offer five to ten times more to attract the most promising among them," he wrote.
Netherlands
France is not the only country struggling with university funding, with foreign students often at the center of the debate. In some countries, high tuition fees for foreign students finance lower costs for domestic students, while elsewhere there are fears that students who study in the EU and then pay taxes in other countries do not bring enough benefit to the country that educated them.
An example of this is Netherlands, where EU students pay around 2.500 euros for undergraduate studies, while foreign students pay between 13.000 and 32.000 euros, depending on the program. A report by the Royal College found that 57% of international students are still in the Netherlands one year after graduation, but that this number drops to around 25% after five years. It also states that international students are more likely to stay than students from other EU countries.
One of the measures of the Dutch government was to increase the number of programs in Dutch instead of English, and not to introduce new programs in English. This policy has led to a reduction in the number of international students by almost 5% in this academic year (2025–26) compared to last year.
Great Britain
Great Britain, unlike most of Europe, has been charging them school fees since 1981. Thanks to the global spread of the English language, it has maintained its advantage in attracting students from abroad.
Despite the fall in the number of students from the EU after Brexit, England still leads the way in Europe, with an estimated economic benefit of €43 billion.
Although their numbers are declining, international students currently make up 23 percent of the student population in the UK. Their tuition fees can reach 44.000 euros per year, while for domestic students they are limited to around 11.300 euros.
Switzerland
Switzerland has taken a different path - with the agreement with the EU from December 2024, it will equalize the tuition fees for domestic and foreign students, which are usually around 800 euros per semester.
Without a single EU policy
There is no uniform policy within the EU. Spain, thanks to the spread of the language, is seeing an increase in the number of foreign students, with tuition fees for EU students ranging from around 2.100 to 5.000 euros, while foreign students sometimes pay a little more.
Portugal is also seeing growth, with over 42.000 foreign students in 2024. Students from the EU pay around 500-700 euros per year, while foreign students pay from 2.500 euros upwards.
In Germany, the costs are among the lowest - most public universities charge between 200 and 500 euros per semester, regardless of the student's background.
Several other countries also offer low-cost or free programs for EU students, such as Austria, Croatia, Ireland, Greece and Sweden, but tuition fees for foreign students vary widely. For example, in Sweden and Ireland they can exceed 10.000 euros per year, while in Austria they are around 700 euros per semester.
The Balkans – a golden mean?
Meanwhile, the countries of the former Yugoslavia are trying to position themselves as the "golden middle" through a specific system of benefits. A key role is played by regional agreements on reciprocity, which enable students from the former Yugoslavia to study in neighboring countries under the same financial conditions as local citizens.
This means that a student from Montenegro or Bosnia and Herzegovina in Serbia can often exercise the right to budget funding, while in Croatia, as an EU member state, students from the Union enjoy the same rights as Croatian citizens. For those outside these circles, the prices are marketable: in Serbia, they range from 2.000 euros for social sciences to 5.000 euros for medicine in English, while in Croatia, medical studies for non-EU students reach up to 12.000 euros per year.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, at public universities (such as those in Sarajevo or Banja Luka), foreign citizens who do not fall under reciprocity agreements pay tuition fees of 1.000 to 3.000 euros per year. On the other hand, students from the region pay the same price as local students, from 400 to 1.000 euros.
However, BiH has become a regional hub for private higher education that attracts students from Turkey and the Middle East; at these universities, medical and engineering studies in English can cost up to 15.000 euros per year.
Montenegro offers perhaps the simplest model in the region. At the University of Montenegro, foreigners pay a single fee of around 500 euros per semester for most programs, while at private faculties the prices range from 1.500 to 2.500 euros. This is the result of promoting the country as a place for "digital nomads" and foreign students, taking advantage of the euro as the official currency.
In the last five years, Croatia has recorded an increase in the number of students of over 25 percent (especially in medical programs), while Serbia has almost doubled the number of foreigners to around 16.500, thanks to reciprocity agreements and favorable prices for studies in English. Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro also record a stable annual increase in the number of foreign students from 4 to 15 percent, attracting students from the region, as well as Turkey and Asia, where the costs of studying are up to ten times lower than in Paris or London.
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