Greece · Attica
Study in Athens: universities, costs and careers for international students
Athens holds roughly a third of Greece’s population and rather more than a third of its jobs, its universities and its research money. Eight public institutions sit inside the metropolitan area, the metro reaches almost all of them, and the country’s two flagship names - the National and Kapodistrian University and the National Technical University - are both here. It is also the most expensive place to live in Greece and the hardest place to find a room in September. Most bachelor’s degrees are still taught in Greek, with the English-taught offer concentrated in medicine, business and master’s programmes. Here is what to weigh.
Universities in Athens
7 universities
Why Athens
Before the detail, the snapshot - what you actually get by studying in the capital.
- Eight public institutions in one metropolitan area - the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, the National Technical University, the Athens University of Economics and Business, the University of West Attica, Panteion, the University of Piraeus, the Agricultural University and Harokopio - so almost any subject you can name is taught somewhere on the metro map
- The National and Kapodistrian University and the National Technical University are the two Greek institutions that appear consistently in the global top 500, and NTUA’s engineering schools are the reference faculties for the whole country
- Greece’s economic centre: the head offices of the four systemic banks, the telecoms and energy groups, and the shipping companies that control the largest merchant fleet in the world, clustered in Piraeus and the northern and southern suburbs
- A real and recent tech build-out - Microsoft’s Greek data-centre region, plus engineering and support hubs run by Amazon, Cisco, Accenture and the big four, alongside a home-grown scene around Viva Wallet, Blueground and Persado
- A half-fare student pass across the metro, tram, bus and suburban rail, and an airport with direct flights to Cairo, Casablanca, Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Johannesburg, Lagos and Accra
Universities & popular courses
Check the language of instruction on the individual programme page. Greece teaches most bachelor’s degrees in Greek and concentrates its English-taught undergraduate offer in a small number of flagship programmes, with far more choice at master’s level.
- National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA): the oldest university in the modern Greek state and the largest in the capital - medicine, law, pharmacy, dentistry, biology, philosophy and theology, and the six-year English-taught MD that opened the country’s undergraduate market to international students
- National Technical University of Athens (NTUA): the country’s leading engineering school - civil, mechanical, electrical and computer, chemical, naval architecture, mining and architecture, taught as five-year integrated diplomas that are treated as master’s-level across the EU
- Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB): economics, business administration, marketing, accounting, statistics and information systems, with an English-taught BSc in International Business and Technology and a large English-taught master’s portfolio
- University of West Attica: the newest and largest applied-sciences university in Greece - engineering technology, the health and care professions, design and business, on campuses in the western suburbs
- Panteion for political science, sociology and international relations; the University of Piraeus for shipping, finance and informatics; the Agricultural University of Athens for food science and agricultural biotechnology
- Curriculum: a Greek bachelor’s (ptychio) runs four years, engineering and pharmacy five, medicine and dentistry six, and an official master’s one to two. Engineering and medical qualifications are single long-cycle degrees rather than a 3+2 split, which is worth knowing before you compare them with a British or Dutch offer
- Most popular with international students: medicine, computer science and informatics, shipping and maritime studies, business administration and finance, archaeology and classical studies, and civil engineering
Career prospects & ROI
Athens is the only Greek city with graduate hiring at northern European volumes - the language, and the salary, are the honest constraints.
- Industry connections: shipping and maritime services out of Piraeus, the four systemic banks, OTE/Deutsche Telekom, PPC, Hellenic Petroleum and Aegean Airlines, plus the Athens delivery centres of Microsoft, Amazon, Accenture, Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC
- Shipping is the one sector where Athens genuinely leads the world - Greek owners control the largest merchant fleet on the planet, and the chartering, broking, insurance and technical-management jobs sit in Piraeus, Glyfada and Kifisia rather than in London
- Work while you study: a residence permit for study allows paid work of up to 20 hours a week, applied for alongside the permit rather than as a separate authorisation. The realistic student jobs are tourism, hospitality, tutoring, and call-centre work where a second language is the asset
- After you graduate: Greece issues a 12-month residence permit to look for work or start a business at the level of the degree you completed, and it converts into a work permit once you are hired. From three months in you can be asked to show the search is real, so keep the applications documented
- Greece is a full EU and Erasmus+ member: an exchange semester anywhere in the bloc is open to you, the degree is recognised across it without further paperwork, and legal years of residence count toward permanent residence
- The honest trade-off: Greek graduate salaries are among the lowest in Western Europe and youth unemployment is still high. The return here comes from very low tuition, an EU degree and real working experience - not from a large first pay cheque
Success stories
Students who crossed the bridge
“I wasted a year trying alone. After the strategy call I knew exactly which documents I was missing - three months later I had my admission.”Read full story →
“They prepared my visa file so well the interview took ten minutes. They even helped my parents understand the blocked account.”Read full story →
“With the VIP pack I arrived in Finland with my room, bank account and even my airport pickup organised. I just had to study.”Read full story →
What it costs
Greece is the cheapest place in the eurozone to take a degree, and Athens is the most expensive part of Greece. The rent, not the tuition, is the number to plan around.
- Public tuition: EU and EEA students pay nothing for a Greek-taught bachelor’s. Non-EU students admitted through the foreign-nationals quota pay a set annual fee, generally in the region of EUR 1,500 for a Greek-taught degree - the English-taught programmes are priced separately and are the exception
- The English-taught six-year MD is the most expensive degree in the country at roughly EUR 12,000-17,000 a year. English-taught bachelor’s degrees in business or classical studies run closer to EUR 4,000-6,000, and most official master’s programmes cost between EUR 1,500 and EUR 4,000 for the whole degree, with some free
- Living costs: budget EUR 700-1,000 a month in Athens. A room in a shared flat runs EUR 300-500 and a studio EUR 450-700, and the student transport pass is half the adult fare
- Subsidised student life is real and worth applying for: the university canteen (sitisi) serves meals free to students who qualify on income, the halls of residence (estia) are means-tested and heavily subsidised, and course textbooks are issued free through the national Eudoxus system
- Scholarships: the state scholarship foundation IKY funds a number of international students, the Onassis Foundation runs a well-known award for postgraduate study in Greece, Erasmus Mundus joint master’s degrees come fully funded, and individual universities run their own schemes - apply to all of them rather than one
- Compulsory on top: the visa fee, the residence-permit fee and health cover for the whole stay until your Greek social-security registration comes through. The consulate also asks for proof of means for each month of your stay, sitting in an account in your name before you apply
Life, safety & culture
A big, warm, late-night Mediterranean capital with a genuinely good metro and a housing market that is its one real problem.
- Language: your degree may be in English, but the lease, the part-time job, the immigration office and daily life all run in Greek, and the alphabet is a real first hurdle. Every university runs cheap or free Greek courses - take them in the first semester, not the last
- Athens is safe by international standards and students move around it at night without much thought. Pickpocketing on the metro and around Omonia and Monastiraki is the realistic risk; several central districts look rougher than they are
- Long-established African and Middle Eastern communities - Egyptian, Nigerian, Sudanese, Ethiopian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi - concentrated around Kypseli, Patissia and the centre, with churches, mosques and food shops that are easy to find
- Healthcare: once you are registered you are issued an AMKA social-security number and can use the public system, which is decent in Athens and thinner outside it. Keep private cover running until the AMKA is actually issued
- The trade-off is housing. University halls cover a small fraction of students, the private market tightens sharply in September, and short-let platforms have absorbed much of the centre’s stock. Start looking two or three months before you fly, and treat any room that asks for a deposit before a viewing as a scam
- The compensations are real: some 250 days of sun a year, a coastline at the end of the tram line, and ferries to the islands from Piraeus on a student budget
How to apply & the bureaucracy
The paperwork is the hard part of studying in Greece, it is centralised through the Ministry of Education, and it starts a long way before the application.
- Bachelor’s, Greek-taught: non-EU school leavers apply through the Ministry of Education’s foreign-nationals quota - one national application in a fixed summer window, with places allocated centrally rather than by the university. You are ranked on your school-leaving results, so getting the transcript and its grades right matters more than a personal statement
- Bachelor’s, English-taught: the flagship English programmes, the medical schools above all, run their own admissions on their own timetable, usually earlier in the year. Apply directly to the university
- Master’s: apply to each department separately. Intakes are mostly September with applications open between roughly February and June, and the standard package is a recognised bachelor’s, transcripts, a CV, a motivation letter and two references
- Language proficiency: English-taught programmes typically ask for IELTS 6.0-6.5 or TOEFL iBT 79-90. Greek-taught ones ask for a certificate of attainment in Greek, normally B2, and several universities run a preparatory year of Greek for exactly that
- Get your certificate or degree apostilled at home first - Greece is in the Hague Convention - then translated into Greek by a recognised sworn translator. Foreign degrees are recognised through DOATAP, which is slow: start it the moment you have the diploma in hand
- After acceptance, apply for the national (D) student visa at the Greek consulate with proof of admission, means, accommodation, health cover and a criminal-record certificate, and allow one to three months. Once in Greece, file for the residence permit for study at the immigration office within your first weeks - book that appointment the week you land
Read these guides next
Want this done for you - with a guarantee?
Everything in this guide is part of our service. Start with a €99 strategy call or let us handle the entire journey.