Italy · Lazio
Study in Rome: universities, costs and careers for international students
Rome offers something no other Italian city does: Sapienza, the largest university in Europe by enrolment, with a subject list long enough that almost anything you want to study is taught somewhere in the city, at public fees that scale down to a few hundred euros a year on a low ISEE. Around it sit three more public universities, two well-known private ones, and an unusual employer mix - the Italian state, the United Nations agencies headquartered here, aerospace and the film industry. The trade-offs are a slower, heavier bureaucracy than the north and a graduate job market thinner than Milan’s. Here is what to weigh.
Universities in Rome
5 universities
Why Rome
Before the detail, the snapshot - what you actually get by studying in the Italian capital.
- Sapienza Università di Roma enrols well over 100,000 students - the largest university in Europe - and teaches almost every subject there is, including a growing set of English-taught degrees
- Four public universities in one city (Sapienza, Tor Vergata, Roma Tre and Foro Italico) means real choice on fees, campus and entry requirements without leaving town
- Public tuition scales with family income: on a low ISEE you pay the regional tax and stamp duty rather than a fee, which makes Rome one of the cheapest capital cities in western Europe to study in
- An employer mix you will not find elsewhere in Italy: the ministries, the FAO, IFAD and WFP headquarters, the space sector, the national broadcaster and Cinecittà
- Living costs run roughly a fifth below Milan, and a Metrebus student pass costs around EUR 130 for the year for under-19s and about EUR 250 a year for the standard annual pass
- Fiumicino is Italy’s main intercontinental gateway, with direct flights to Lagos, Accra, Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Cairo, Algiers, Tunis and Johannesburg
Universities & popular courses
Check the language of instruction on each programme page. Rome’s English-taught offer is concentrated in medicine, engineering, economics and international relations.
- Sapienza Università di Roma: everything from medicine and engineering to classics, archaeology and economics, with English-taught degrees in Medicine and Surgery, Nursing, Bioinformatics, Applied Computer Science, Global Health and several engineering master’s
- Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata: economics, engineering, medicine and biotechnology, on a large campus in the south-east with English-taught programmes in Global Governance, Business Administration and Medicine
- Università degli Studi Roma Tre: engineering, economics, law, education and the humanities - the youngest and often the most accessible of the public universities, with lower fees and a real campus feel around Ostiense
- LUISS Guido Carli: the private route for economics, management, law and political science, taught largely in English and closely tied to Italian business and politics - budget in the region of EUR 12,000-14,000 a year, with substantial need-based reductions
- Also here: Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore’s Rome campus with the Gemelli teaching hospital and an English-taught Medicine and Surgery degree, Campus Bio-Medico, and the English-language John Cabot University and American University of Rome
- Curriculum: a bachelor’s (laurea triennale) runs three years and a master’s (laurea magistrale) two; medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, veterinary science and architecture are single-cycle degrees of five to six years
- Most popular with international students: medicine and surgery, international relations and global governance, architecture, civil and aerospace engineering, economics and finance, and archaeology and art history
Career prospects & ROI
Rome hires differently from Milan - less corporate, more institutional, and unusually open to people who work in several languages.
- Industry connections: the FAO, IFAD and the World Food Programme are headquartered in Rome and recruit internationally, as do the many NGOs and development agencies clustered around them - the strongest reason in Italy to study international relations or development here
- Aerospace and defence: Leonardo, Thales Alenia Space, Avio and the European Space Agency’s ESRIN centre in nearby Frascati, with Tor Vergata and Sapienza feeding them engineers
- Also here: the public administration and the ministries, Enel and ENI headquarters, the national broadcaster RAI and the Cinecittà studios, plus a tourism and heritage sector that employs at every level
- Internships (tirocinio) are part of most master’s degrees, and the international organisations run their own competitive internship and Junior Professional Officer routes - start those applications a year ahead
- Work while you study: the student residence permit allows up to 20 hours a week, capped at 1,040 hours a year. Tutoring, hospitality and the tourism season absorb a lot of student hours here
- After you graduate: the permesso di soggiorno per attesa occupazione gives graduates of Italian universities up to 12 months to look for work or start a business - file it before your student permit runs out
- The honest trade-off: outside the international organisations and aerospace, Roman graduate salaries are modest and hiring is slower than in Milan. Many graduates use the Roman degree and move north or elsewhere in the EU
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
The cheapest of Italy’s big study cities once you are past the rent - and the public fees can fall close to zero.
- Public tuition is means-tested through the ISEE parificato: below the no-tax threshold (around EUR 22,000-24,000 of assessed income at Sapienza, Tor Vergata and Roma Tre) you pay only the regional tax and stamp duty, roughly EUR 160-200 a year. The full rate tops out near EUR 2,900-3,000 - lower than Milan
- Private universities charge a flat fee: budget in the region of EUR 12,000-14,000 a year at LUISS or Cattolica’s Rome campus, before their need-based reductions
- DiSCo Lazio, the regional right-to-study agency, awards the big grants: a tuition waiver, a residence place or housing allowance, canteen meals and a cash instalment, means-tested on the ISEE and open to international students. It is a separate application from admission, usually in late summer
- Living costs: budget EUR 750-1,000 a month. A room in a shared flat runs EUR 450-700 depending on how far out you live, a DiSCo residence place far less, and a canteen meal EUR 3-7
- Other funding: MAECI Italian government scholarships, Erasmus Mundus joint master’s degrees, and Sapienza’s own international merit awards, which waive fees and add a cash prize
- One-off costs: the visa fee, the EUR 16 revenue stamp and roughly EUR 70-120 for the residence-permit kit, health cover, and a rental deposit of two to three months’ rent
- The visa also asks for proof of means for the year - a bank statement or a scholarship award letter in your name
Life, safety & culture
A capital that is cheaper, warmer and slower than Milan, with the trade-offs that implies.
- Language: the English-taught degrees are real, but daily Rome runs in Italian - the questura, the landlord, the doctor and most part-time work. Take the free university Italian course from your first semester
- Rome is safe by the standards of large European capitals; the realistic risk is pickpocketing on the 64 bus, at Termini and around the main sights, not violent crime
- Healthcare: register with the SSN (the annual student contribution was raised sharply in 2024 - check the current figure) or buy private cover. The university medical services and the big teaching hospitals handle routine care
- Housing: the student areas are San Lorenzo and Pigneto near Sapienza, Ostiense and Garbatella near Roma Tre, and the neighbourhoods along the metro lines. Start looking in June, and never pay a deposit before you have seen a flat
- Public transport is the weak point compared with Milan - two and a half metro lines for a city this size, so where you live decides how much of your day you spend commuting
- A long-established international city: African, Filipino, Bangladeshi, Latin American and Middle Eastern communities, churches and mosques, student associations at every university, and an Erasmus population that turns over every semester
How to apply & the bureaucracy
The same two tracks as everywhere in Italy - university admission plus Universitaly pre-enrolment - with Rome’s administration running slower than the north’s.
- Apply directly to each university, generally between January and June for an autumn start; the public universities publish a separate international-student call (bando) with its own earlier deadline, often in the spring
- Pre-enrol on the Universitaly portal for one university and one programme - non-EU applicants cannot get the study visa without it, and the deadline usually falls in early summer
- Entrance tests: English-taught medicine uses the IMAT, sat abroad and in Italy, usually in September; many other degrees use the TOLC test run by CISIA, which can be taken online from home
- Language proficiency: English-taught programmes typically ask for IELTS 6.0-6.5 or TOEFL iBT 78-90; Italian-taught ones ask for B2 Italian, tested by the university or through CILS/CELI
- Documents: school-leaving certificate or bachelor’s degree with transcripts, passport, motivation letter and references, plus a CIMEA Statement of Comparability or a Dichiarazione di Valore from the consulate. Start this early - it is the step that delays most applications from Africa
- After acceptance, apply for the type D student visa, then file for the permesso di soggiorno within eight working days of arrival at a post office Sportello Amico, and get your codice fiscale immediately - nothing else works without it
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