How much are tuition fees for foreign students across Europe: Montenegro offers perhaps the simplest model in the region

The French government's plan to charge non-EU students up to 16 times more in tuition fees has sparked a backlash. How does this work across Europe, inside and outside the EU?

Francuska

The "Choose France for Higher Education" program, announced last month, aims to abolish the exemption system that French universities have often used to make tuition fees for non-EU students the same as for EU students.

As a result, most non-EU students coming to France in the 2026/27 academic year will have to pay annual tuition fees of €2.895 for undergraduate studies and €3.941 for master's studies. This is a 16-fold increase compared to previous prices, and is expected to bring in an additional €250 million per year for universities.

"This proposal represents a worrying step in terms of commitment to equal access to higher education. By significantly increasing tuition fees for non-EU students, the French government risks institutionalizing a system in which access to education increasingly depends on citizenship and financial ability," the European Students' 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 strategic 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 changes are needed, given that universities are under increasing pressure and students are increasingly able to choose to study outside their home countries.

"Given the state of public finances, free education removes the only realistic option for financing competitive salaries for teaching and research staff. Who knows that young lecturers in France, after ten years of higher education plus several years of postdoctoral 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 centre of the debate. In some countries, high tuition fees for foreign students fund lower costs for domestic students, while in others there are concerns 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 the Netherlands, where EU students pay around €2.500 for undergraduate studies, while international students pay between €13.000 and €32.000, depending on the programme. A report by King's College found that 57% of international students were still in the Netherlands a year after graduating, but that number dropped to around 25% after five years. It also found that international students were more likely to stay than students from other EU countries.

One of the measures taken by the Dutch government was to increase the number of programs in Dutch rather than in English, and not to introduce new programs in English. This policy has led to a decrease in the number of international students by almost 5% in this academic year (2025–26) compared to the previous one.

Great Britain

The United Kingdom, unlike most of Europe, has been charging tuition fees since 1981. Thanks to the global spread of the English language, it has maintained an advantage in attracting students from abroad.

Despite a drop in the number of EU students after Brexit, England still leads 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 up to €44.000 a year, while for domestic students they are capped at around €11.300.

Switzerland

Switzerland has taken a different path – with an agreement with the EU from December 2024, it will equalize tuition fees for domestic and international students, which usually range 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 pay a little more in some places.

Portugal is also seeing growth, with over 42.000 foreign students in 2024. EU students pay around 500–700 euros per year, while foreign students pay from 2.500 euros upwards.

In Germany, 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 cheap or free programs for EU students, such as Austria, Croatia, Ireland, Greece, and Sweden, but tuition fees for international students vary considerably. For example, in Sweden and Ireland, they can exceed 10.000 euros per year, while in Austria they are around 700 euros per semester.

Balkans - the golden mean?

Meanwhile, the countries of the former Yugoslavia are trying to position themselves as a "golden mean" through a specific system of benefits. A key role is played by regional reciprocity agreements, which allow students from the former Yugoslavia to study in neighboring countries under the same financial conditions as domestic citizens.

This means that a student from Montenegro or Bosnia and Herzegovina in Serbia can often be eligible for 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, prices are market-based: 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 ranging from 1.000 to 3.000 euros per year. On the other hand, students from the region pay the same price as domestic students, ranging from 400 to 1.000 euros.

However, BiH has become a regional hub for private higher education, attracting students from Turkey and the Middle East; at these universities, English-language medical and engineering studies 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 flat fee of around 500 euros per semester for most programs, while at private universities prices range from 1.500 to 2.500 euros. This is the result of the country's promotion as a destination for "digital nomads" and foreign students, taking advantage of the euro as the official currency.

In the last five years, Croatia has seen a 25 percent increase in student numbers (especially in medical programs), while Serbia has almost doubled the number of foreigners to around 16.500, thanks to reciprocity agreements and affordable English-language studies. Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro have also seen a steady annual increase in the number of foreign students of 4 to 15 percent, attracting students from the region, as well as Turkey and Asia, where study costs are up to ten times lower than in Paris or London.