France wants to select foreign students more strictly. Substantial increases in tuition fees

Most non-EU students coming to France will see their tuition fees rise sharply from the academic year 2026. The Paris government also wants to prioritize science and engineering programs for re-industrialisation.

On the sensitive issue of foreign students, French Higher Education Minister Philippe Baptiste announced a plan called “Choose France for Higher Education”. A kind of “act 2” of the “Bienvenue en France” plan, launched in 2018 by former prime minister Édouard Philippe and supervised at the time by Philippe Baptiste himself in the cabinet of former minister Frédérique Vidal, reports the French economic daily Les Echos on Tuesday, quoted by Rador Radio Romania.

The announcements since then were supposed to lead to a significant increase in tuition fees for foreign students. In practice, however, they have not been widely applied, with most universities developing exemption strategies. Only about ten (out of 78) apply them, including La Rochelle, Le Havre, Grenoble Alpes or Paris Panthéon-Assas.

Huge increase in tuition fees

“Universities will no longer be able to grant massive exemptions,” Philippe Baptiste told Le Parisien newspaper on Monday evening. “These will be reserved for very specific cases.” The minister wants to “return to the fundamental principles” of 2018: “The rule is differentiated taxes, and the exception is exemption.”

For the majority of foreign students from outside the European Union, the consequence will be concrete as early as autumn 2026: bachelor's fees will increase to 2,895 euros, and master's fees to 3,941 euros, compared to 178 and 254 euros at present. The reform will be implemented by decree and will target new students and those changing their study cycle, but only those who do not benefit from the scholarship.

This policy will result in three categories of non-EU students:

• most will pay the new taxes;
• 10% will be exempted in each university;
• the best will be able to receive scholarships from the French state.

In two to three years, the measure could bring approximately 250 million euros annually to the universities, money that would improve the conditions for receiving students, in a context of budget restrictions.

Although the target of attracting 500,000 foreign students by 2027 is “on track”, the minister believes that “it can be done even better”, evoking the more aggressive strategies of Germany, Great Britain or Turkey. “France is ranked 8th as a study destination,” he recalls.

A selective student immigration

Could rising fees discourage foreign students? Philippe Baptiste rejects this idea: “By comparison, a master's degree in the United States costs between $20,000 and $100,000 per year (€17,000-85,000).” He believes that the new taxes in France remain “extremely competitive”.

A report by the Court of Auditors published last year showed that institutions which had already applied differentiated fees had not seen “a significant decrease in the number of students or a change in their profile”.

Reindustrialization of the country

The second objective of the plan is the prioritization of strategic areas: digital, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, biotechnologies.

For reindustrialization, France needs 40,000 engineers and 40,000 technicians annually. As these needs cannot be met with only French or European students, the government wants to give priority to international students in these fields. Thus, 60% of government scholarships for foreign students will be directed to these profiles.

“France has an acute need for talent from around the world” to support its training in the technical and scientific fields, the minister declared last July.

Critics and opposition

Suzanne Nijdam, president of the student organization FAGE, criticizes the measure, saying it is difficult to justify without clear data about the real needs of the economy.

She announces “a general mobilization of students in the coming weeks” to defend fair access to higher education.

After removing the eligibility of foreign students for certain housing benefits, she denounces “a dangerous, discriminatory and incoherent plan” and “a xenophobic project of differentiated taxes”.

“This plan will create major barriers for some countries, although we are proud of the universality of access to a model that we want to preserve,” she says.

The representatives of the universities, united in the France Universités organization, have not yet reacted. In 2018, they massively opposed a similar project, prompting the government to leave the final decision up to each university.