Universities in Milan for International Students: Fees & Entry
Milan does not have one big university that does everything. It has a dozen specialised ones, and choosing well means matching your subject to the right institution rather than chasing a name. A design student and a medical student will have almost nothing in common here, including the price.
This guide gives you what the brochures leave out: what each one actually costs, which programmes are taught in English, how many international students are already there, and what to do if you are coming for one semester rather than a full degree. We have been here since 2016, which mostly means we have watched a lot of people pick a university for the wrong reason.
🎒 Already accepted? The Erasmus Milan Survival Kit is our free guide to the first two weeks in the city: paperwork, transport, banking and the mistakes that cost money.
The short answer, by subject
| If you study | Look at |
|---|---|
| Engineering, architecture, industrial design | Politecnico di Milano |
| Economics, finance, management, law | Bocconi, Cattolica |
| Humanities, sciences, medicine, law | Statale, Bicocca |
| Medicine and psychology, small cohorts | San Raffaele |
| Communication, media, tourism, fashion business | IULM, Cattolica |
| Fashion and design, professional track | NABA, Marangoni, Domus Academy, IED |
| Fine arts | Accademia di Brera, NABA |
| Photography and visual communication | CFP Bauer |
| Music, dance, stagecraft | Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi, Accademia del Teatro alla Scala |
Public or private, and what it actually costs
This is the split that decides most of the budget, and the one every generic guide skips.
Public universities charge on a sliding scale tied to family income, measured by a certificate called ISEE. Low income means you pay very little, sometimes nothing. Private universities charge a set fee, sometimes with income-based reductions of their own.
The catch for non-EU students: at several public universities, if your income and assets are abroad and you have no scholarship, you are charged a flat rate or the top bracket regardless of what your family actually earns. Budget accordingly.
| University | Type | Tuition per year, 2026/27 |
|---|---|---|
| Statale | Public | Nothing below €30,000 ISEE. Above that it rises with income, to a maximum second instalment of €3,204 to €4,101 depending on the subject area |
| Politecnico | Public | About €160 to €3,900 by ISEE bracket. Non-EU students on a master’s with a foreign qualification and no scholarship pay the top of the scale |
| Bicocca | Public | ISEE brackets for residents. Flat rate for non-Italian citizens with a foreign qualification, set by country of residence and subject area |
| Cattolica | Private | €3,200 to €10,400 by income bracket |
| IULM | Private | €3,656 to €8,556 for a bachelor’s, across five brackets |
| Bocconi | Private | €17,000 for a bachelor’s. EU students get income-based reductions that can go to zero |
| NABA | Private | Up to €22,250 for a master’s at the top bracket, with reductions for EU residents |
| Marangoni | Private | €16,900 to €33,500 depending on programme and campus |
Two things to note before you use this table. Fees change every year and the brackets move, so treat these as the shape of the market rather than a quote. And tuition is the smaller half of the problem in Milan: a room averages €704 a month across the city, which over a ten-month academic year is more than most public university fees combined. See the cost of living in Milan and what rent costs zone by zone.
The universities
Politecnico di Milano
Public · engineering, architecture, design · Città Studi and Bovisa
The strongest name in the city by international measure. In the QS World University Rankings 2026 it placed 98th, the first time an Italian university has entered the global top 100. Around 38,000 students across its campuses, which makes it the largest technical university in Italy.
It is also the most set up for people arriving from abroad: over 400 Erasmus+ agreements and 2,833 students hosted on exchange, 584 of them on double degrees. Most master’s programmes in engineering, architecture and design run entirely in English; at bachelor’s level the English options are narrower.
Two campuses, and which one you get changes your daily life more than people expect. Leonardo is in Città Studi, on the M2. Bovisa, where design and part of engineering sit, has no metro at all and is reached by suburban train. More on the Politecnico di Milano page.
Università Bocconi
Private · economics, finance, management, law, data science · Porta Romana
Bocconi does not appear in the overall QS ranking, and that confuses people every year. The reason is structural: it is a specialised institution, so it is ranked by subject rather than across all faculties. Where it does appear, it appears high, 12th in the world and 4th in Europe in Social Sciences and Management in the 2026 subject rankings.
It has the deepest set of English-taught programmes in the city at both bachelor’s and master’s level, and the most internationally recruited student body. It is also the most expensive at €17,000 a year, although EU students with lower family income can see that reduced substantially, in some cases to nothing. Its own scholarship system is worth reading properly before you rule it out on price.
The campus sits just south of the centre near Porta Romana, in a district that from this autumn also holds the largest subsidised student residence in Italy. More on the Bocconi page.
Università degli Studi di Milano, “La Statale”
Public · everything · centre, Città Studi, and a new campus at MIND
The big comprehensive public university, with roughly 60,000 students and faculties in almost every field: humanities, law, sciences, medicine, agriculture, veterinary. In the QS 2026 subject tables its strongest showing is 49th in the world in Veterinary Medicine, with solid placings in Pharmacy, Medicine and Sociology.
The financial case is the strongest in Milan: students with an ISEE below €30,000 pay no tuition at all, a threshold the university raised from €22,000. Non-Italian citizens holding a foreign qualification are charged on a flat-rate system based on country of residence instead.
English-taught degrees are concentrated at master’s level, plus the six-year International Medical School in Medicine and Surgery, which is taught in English and entered through the national IMAT exam.
One thing to check before you commit. The scientific faculties are moving out of Città Studi to the new MIND campus on the former Expo site, phased in from the 2026/27 academic year. If your course is in the sciences, confirm which site you will actually be taught on before signing a lease anywhere. More on the Statale page.
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Private · economics, law, communication, humanities, healthcare · Sant’Ambrogio
Italy’s largest private university, on a historic campus next to the Sant’Ambrogio basilica, five minutes from the centre on the M2 and M4. Catholic in foundation and open in admission. In QS 2026 it sits in the 201-250 band for Economics.
Fees run €3,200 to €10,400 by income bracket, which puts it well below Bocconi and well above the public universities. English-taught programmes have expanded steadily, mostly at postgraduate level in management, international relations and healthcare. More on the Cattolica page.
Università di Milano-Bicocca
Public · sciences, economics, law, medicine, psychology, education · Bicocca
The youngest of the big public universities, founded in 1998 on the site of the old Pirelli factories, and the one most guides forget. It has over 38,000 students and takes in around 2,200 international students a year, about 300 of them on exchange, double degrees or PhD stays of one or two semesters. In QS 2026 it appears in the 451-500 band for Economics.
What makes it worth a look: it is a genuine campus, unusual in Milan, where the university, the housing and the metro are all within a few minutes of each other, and the surrounding district is one of the cheaper places to rent in the city. Non-Italian citizens with a foreign qualification pay a flat rate set by country of residence. More on the Bicocca page.
Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele
Private · medicine, psychology, philosophy · Segrate, east of the city
Small, selective, and built around the San Raffaele hospital and research institute rather than a city campus. Cohorts are tiny compared to the Statale, entry is competitive, and the environment is closer to a research institute than a university in the ordinary sense. It sits outside the city proper at Segrate, which matters for where you live. More on the San Raffaele page.
IULM
Private · communication, media, tourism, fashion and arts management · Romolo
A specialist in the fields Milan actually runs on: communication, advertising, tourism, fashion and cultural management. Its own compact campus near Romolo on the M2, which gives it a student life more concentrated than the scattered public universities. Bachelor’s fees run €3,656 to €8,556 across five income brackets. English-taught master’s programmes cluster in tourism management and food and beverage communication. More on the IULM page.
Art, design and fashion schools
Milan’s design reputation is not carried by the universities alone. These are academies and institutes, with smaller cohorts, portfolio-based admission and a much heavier workshop component.
- NABA: fashion, design, media and visual arts, with a large share of programmes in English and a campus in the Navigli area. Master’s fees reach €22,250 at the top bracket, with reductions for EU residents.
- Istituto Marangoni: the fashion school with the strongest industry name and the highest price tag, €16,900 to €33,500 depending on programme and campus. Intensive, short, and built around the alumni network.
- IED: design, fashion, visual arts and management, with sites across the city and a strongly professional orientation.
- Domus Academy: postgraduate only, design and fashion, project-based and taught in English.
- Accademia di Brera: the historic fine arts academy, public, in the middle of the Brera district. Painting, sculpture, scenography, new technologies. Far cheaper than the private academies and correspondingly harder to navigate administratively.
- CFP Bauer: photography and visual communication, small and vocational.
Music and performance
- Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi: the city’s conservatory, central, entry by audition.
- Accademia del Teatro alla Scala: dance, music, stagecraft and arts management, attached to the opera house itself. Very small intakes.
One clarification, because it comes up: LIUC is often listed among Milan’s universities but is in Castellanza, about 40 minutes out by train. Worth knowing before you plan a commute.
If you are coming on Erasmus or exchange
Most guides to Milan universities are written for degree-seeking students. If you are coming for one or two semesters the process is different, and shorter.
You do not apply to the university. Your home university nominates you, and the Milan institution then invites you to complete an application. Missing the nomination window at home is the single most common way people lose a place, and no amount of emailing Milan will fix it.
Erasmus codes, for the Learning Agreement. These four are verified:
| University | Erasmus code |
|---|---|
| Politecnico di Milano | I MILANO02 |
| Università Cattolica | I MILANO03 |
| IULM | I MILANO05 |
| Università di Milano-Bicocca | I MILANO16 |
For the others, take the code from the current information sheet on the university’s own international pages rather than from a list you found somewhere. Codes get copied wrong, and a wrong one on a Learning Agreement is a real problem to unpick later.
Shape of the year. The first semester runs from roughly mid-September to mid-February including the exam session, the second from late February to July. That second date surprises people: the Italian exam calendar runs later than in most of Europe, so a spring semester often means staying into July rather than finishing in May.
Where the exchange places actually are. The Politecnico hosts by far the most, 2,833 exchange students with over 400 Erasmus+ agreements. Bicocca takes around 300 a year. If your home university has agreements with more than one Milan institution, the size of the incoming cohort is worth weighing: a bigger cohort means a functioning international community from week one.
Applying: what to have ready
Check the language of instruction on the specific programme page, not the university homepage. “Taught in English” is often true of the master’s and not the bachelor’s in the same department, and departmental pages are more reliable than the marketing ones.
Entrance exams are the real gate. Medicine in English goes through IMAT, a national exam sat once a year. Many public engineering and science courses use TOLC, an online admission test with multiple sittings. Bocconi and the private universities run their own rolling application rounds, and applying in an early round genuinely helps. All of these have deadlines months before the academic year starts, typically in the winter and spring.
Get your qualifications recognised early. Non-EU applicants usually need a Declaration of Value or a comparable statement from a recognition body, obtained through the Italian consulate in their country. It is slow. Start it before you have an offer, not after.
Once you are in: what to sort out
Most students arriving in Milan are EU citizens, so we will start there.
If you are an EU citizen, there is no visa and no residence permit. What you actually need is:
- Codice fiscale, the Italian tax code. Free, from the Agenzia delle Entrate, by appointment. You need it for a phone contract, a bank account, a rental contract and often for enrolment itself. Do this first.
- Your EHIC card (the TEAM card), which covers you for public healthcare. Bring it from home, it costs nothing.
- Registering your residency with the Comune if you are staying more than three months, which requires a registered rental contract.
If you are a non-EU citizen, the sequence is longer: a type D student visa applied for at the Italian consulate before you travel, then a permesso di soggiorno applied for within eight working days of arrival, then the tax code and the rest. Every university has an international office that handles this every September and knows the process better than any blog does. Use them.
The full breakdown is in the documents you need for staying in Milan.
Finding somewhere to live
Start earlier than feels reasonable. Milan is the most expensive student city in Italy, university-owned housing is limited everywhere, and the good private rooms go in July and August for a September start.
Two rules that save people money. Never pay a deposit for a room you have not seen, in person or on a live video call: the fake listing with a landlord “abroad until September” is the standard scam aimed at arriving students. And ask what the advertised rent excludes, because bills typically add €100 to €180 a month on top.
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More in the guide to student accommodation in Milan and the zones of Milan.
Questions
It depends entirely on the subject, and anyone answering otherwise is guessing. By international ranking the Politecnico is the strongest overall, 98th in the QS World University Rankings 2026 and the first Italian university in the global top 100. For economics and management, Bocconi is 12th in the world in its subject group. For breadth of subjects, the Statale.
Yes, and at master’s level the choice is wide across every major university. At bachelor’s level it is narrower and concentrated in economics, business, engineering and design. Always confirm on the specific programme page rather than the university’s general English-language site.
At public universities, from nothing to around €4,000 a year depending on income, though non-EU students with income abroad are often charged a flat rate or the top bracket. At private universities, from about €3,200 at Cattolica’s lowest bracket to €17,000 at Bocconi and up to €33,500 at Istituto Marangoni.
Yes: the Statale, the Politecnico and Bicocca are all public, all take international students, and all cost a fraction of the private institutions. The Statale charges no tuition at all below €30,000 ISEE.
Not to study, if your programme is in English. You will want it for everything else: the tax office, the landlord, the doctor, and the part of the city that does not work in English. Most universities run subsidised Italian courses for international students, and they are worth taking in the first semester rather than the second.
Teaching usually begins in mid to late September, with the second semester starting in late February. Exam sessions follow each semester, which pushes the real end of the year into February and July.
Tens of thousands across the city. To give a sense of scale from published figures: the Politecnico hosts 2,833 students on exchange alone, and Bicocca takes about 2,200 international students a year.
Yes, and rent is the reason rather than tuition. A single room averages €704 a month, the highest in Italy. Public university fees can be close to zero for the same student.
🎒 Picked your university? The hard part is the two weeks after you land.
The Erasmus Milan Survival Kit is our free guide to arriving: the paperwork that actually applies to EU students, transport, banking, and the mistakes that cost the most money.
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Related reading:
Erasmus in Milan: the complete guide · The zones of Milan · Student accommodation in Milan · Cost of living in Milan · Documents you need in Milan · Student jobs in Milan · Getting around Milan · Milan nightlife for students · Erasmus events in Milan
Fees, rankings and campuses change every year, and one university on this list is in the middle of moving. Figures are from the universities’ own 2026/27 fee pages and the QS 2026 rankings; we recheck them before each intake. Last updated: August 2026.
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