Study in France

France looks like one system from the outside, but it has three doors and they barely overlap. Public universities award the licence (three years), the master’s (two years) and the doctorate at fees set by the state. Grandes écoles - the engineering schools, Sciences Po and the leading business schools - select hard and run their own admissions. Private business, management and design schools teach most of France’s English-taught bachelor’s degrees and charge accordingly. Around 440,000 international students study in France, with Morocco, Algeria and Senegal among the largest groups, and France is still the first destination for students from sub-Saharan Africa. Almost all of them handled the application, the Campus France interview and the visa from their home country.

So choose the type of school before you choose the city. It decides what you pay - about €2,900 a year for a public licence against €8,000-€25,000 at a private school - which language you are taught in, whether you apply through Campus France or directly to the school, and how selective the entry is. A WASSCE holder in Lagos who wants an English-taught bachelor’s usually ends up at a business school; a baccalauréat holder in Dakar with strong French can start a public licence for a fraction of that price and switch to English for the master’s. The city pages above show which universities and schools each city offers; this article covers the rules that apply everywhere in France.

On paper France is more open than most of Europe: there is no thirteenth-year rule and no Studienkolleg. A school-leaving certificate that gives you access to university at home is accepted for the first year of a French licence. In practice that means WASSCE or NECO with five credits including English and Mathematics (Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, The Gambia), KCSE with a C+ mean grade or better (Kenya), an NSC bachelor’s pass (South Africa) or the baccalauréat (Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Benin, Togo, Gabon, Congo, the DRC, Madagascar, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia). HND holders (Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon) are assessed case by case, often for the second or third year of a licence or a licence professionnelle, and a completed bachelor’s degree opens the first year of a master’s (M1).

The real filter is language. Almost every public licence is taught entirely in French, so you need B2 French: first-year applicants take the TCF DAP unless they already hold a DELF B2 or a DALF, and applicants schooled in French in a country where French is the official language are usually exempt. English-taught bachelor’s degrees exist, but mostly at private business schools and a few selective institutions such as Sciences Po. At master’s level the picture flips: Campus France lists more than 1,600 programmes taught in English, normally on IELTS 6.0-6.5 or TOEFL 79-90. Learn French anyway - internships, part-time jobs and your first French employer will expect it, so aim for B1-B2 by graduation.

How you apply depends on where you live. Residents of around thirty African countries - among them Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda, South Africa, Cameroon, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, Togo, Guinea, Gabon, Congo, the DRC, Madagascar, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia - must go through Campus France and the Études en France platform: an online file, a fee set per country and an interview whose opinion the consulate reads before deciding on your visa. For a first-year licence (the DAP) the platform opens on 1 October 2026 and closes on 15 December 2026 for the September 2027 intake; universities answer by 30 April and you confirm your choice by 31 May. Master’s deadlines follow each programme’s own calendar. From Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Angola or Mozambique you apply directly to the school, then for the visa.

Public university fees are set nationally. In 2026-27 non-EU students pay €2,902 a year for a licence or BUT and €3,950 for a master’s, against €178 and €255 for EU students, plus the €105 CVEC campus contribution; a doctorate costs about €400 for everyone. What changed is the waiver. Until 2025-26 most universities charged most of their non-EU students the EU rate; since a decree of 19 May 2026, discretionary waivers are capped at 30 % of non-EU students per university in 2026-27, 25 % in 2027-28 and 20 % after that - so budget for the full fee. French government scholarship holders, refugees and exchange students stay exempt outside the cap. Private business and engineering schools charge roughly €8,000-€25,000 a year; the Eiffel scholarship, nominated by your French school, and French embassy grants are the main ways to bring that down.

The second number jumped this year. Since 1 August 2026 a French student visa needs proof of €877.50 a month - 47 % of the gross minimum wage, or €10,530 for twelve months, up from €615 - and it now rises with the minimum wage. Show it with your own bank statements, a sponsor’s signed guarantee with their statements, or a scholarship letter; France asks for no blocked account. Real life costs more: budget €1,200-€1,800 a month in Paris and €750-€1,100 in Lyon, Toulouse, Lille, Bordeaux, Montpellier, Grenoble or Strasbourg. A CROUS residence room is the cheapest roof, and Visale, the state’s free rent guarantee, replaces the French guarantor landlords ask for. Plan rent without help: since 1 July 2026 non-EU students without a French needs-based grant - almost every newcomer - no longer receive APL housing aid.

Your student residence permit lets you work 964 hours a year - about 60 % of a full-time year, or roughly 20 hours a week - for at least the French minimum wage, without any extra permit. Most degrees also build in internships (stages), and any internship longer than two months must be paid; for many graduates the final internship turns into the first contract. Work-study (alternance) contracts, in which a company pays your tuition and a salary, are open to international students too, but the employer must first obtain a work authorisation. Algerian students fall under the 1968 Franco-Algerian agreement instead: they need a work authorisation for each job and may work at most half-time, so check your rules before you build a budget around a job.

Then look past graduation, because that is where a French degree pays for itself. A master’s, an engineering diploma or a licence professionnelle earned in France qualifies you for a 12-month permit to look for work or start a company (the RECE, formerly the APS), with full-time work allowed while you search; a general three-year licence does not, one reason most students stay for the master’s. A job that matches your degree moves you to a salaried permit, a multi-year Talent permit or the EU Blue Card, which brings permanent residence within reach in a few years and lets your family join you. Some African countries have bilateral agreements with France that adjust these rules, so check yours. Then pick the city that fits your field and open its page above - or send us one WhatsApp message and we will do it with you.