Universities in Italy for African Students

Choosing a university in Italy

Italy has 100 recognised higher-education institutions, and the first split is public against private. Public universities normally set fees by family income; for a non-EU applicant with no Italian ISEE, most of them use a country-income table instead. The whole public range is €200–4,200 per year, and the nine origins we serve land in a reduced or middle band. Private universities set their own prices, from €3,400–17,000 per year at bachelor’s level.

The second split is language of instruction. Italian-taught degrees are the default; English-taught ones are a minority, concentrated at master’s level and in the technical universities. The third is city cost, which varies far more than tuition. Milan runs €1,050–1,550 per month and Pisa €750–1,150 per month.

Decide your shortlist in that order — language, then whether the university names your school certificate in its own rules, then rent — and treat the ranking as the last question, not the first. Several universities outside the QS top 200 teach the same subject at a similar fee in a cheaper city. Read the full cost of studying in Italy before you settle on Rome or Milan.

Top universities in Italy

Fees below are the published non-EU rates for students without an Italian ISEE, for 2026/27 unless the dataset says otherwise.

Sapienza University of Rome, ranked #111 (QS 2027), is the largest and the cheapest serious option here: all nine origins sit in its lowest band at €300 per year. It teaches medicine in English and lists 45 English master’s.

University of Bologna, #123 (QS 2027) and founded in 1088, is broad — law, economics, humanities, engineering, medicine — with medicine in English. Bachelor’s fees run €500–1,200 per year on a two-tier citizenship list, and application is free.

Politecnico di Milano is Italy’s highest-ranked university at #87 (QS 2027), for engineering, architecture and design. Non-EU master’s students without a scholarship pay the top band, €3,943.04 per year, in Italy’s most expensive city.

Politecnico di Torino, #206 (QS 2027), runs 8 English bachelor’s and 30 English master’s in engineering and architecture, at €600–3,600 per year. Turin’s living costs are among the lowest of the big cities.

University of Padua, #204 (QS 2027), covers medicine, engineering, sciences and economics, and teaches medicine in English. Its published band is €2,790–2,990 per year, with citizens of DAC low-income countries paying a reduced fraction of it.

University of Milan (La Statale), #270 (QS 2027), is strong in medicine, life sciences and law, teaches medicine in English, and charges one of the lowest flat fees, €346–402 per year.

University of Rome Tor Vergata, #342 (QS 2027), is small at 14,382 students but heavily international, with English-taught economics and medicine. Fees run €500–4,500 per year.

University of Pisa, #343 (QS 2026), tiers fees by World Bank income group, €290–2,900 per year, in the cheapest city on this list. Medicine is taught in Italian only.

University of Turin, #405 (QS 2027), teaches medicine in English and lists 21 English master’s, at €500–1,650 per year.

University of Naples Federico II, #401 (QS 2027), teaches medicine in English at €1,000–4,000 per year, above its general band of €146–3,585 per year.

University of Florence, #409 (QS 2027), charges €156–2,900 per year but has the thinnest English offer here and no medicine in English.

Bocconi University is private, in Milan, and ranked QS by Subject 2026: Social Sciences & Management #12 (no overall QS WUR entry) (QS 2026) for economics, finance and management. Bachelor’s tuition is €17,000 per year before need-based aid.

English-taught programmes

The English offer is far deeper at master’s level than at bachelor’s. Sapienza lists 8 English bachelor’s against 45 master’s; Milan Statale 4 against 40; Padua 4 against 28; Turin 3 against 21; Pisa 2 against 17; Florence only 1 against 9. Politecnico di Torino is the exception, with 8 English bachelor’s.

Outside the lecture room the language is Italian: the landlord, the part-time job, the Questura counter and the doctor. Plan for Italian classes even on an English-taught degree.

There is no national English rule; each university sets its own. IELTS 6 at bachelor’s and 6 at master’s is the common baseline, not a law — Politecnico di Milano asks 5 for bachelor’s entry, Bocconi 6.5, Pisa TOEFL iBT 90. If your schooling was in English, ask the admissions office in writing whether that exempts you before you pay for a test: Politecnico di Torino exempts Nigerian, Ghanaian, Kenyan and South African applicants from an English certificate, but not Moroccan ones. See studying in Italy without IELTS.

Entry requirements for African students

Every application runs through one national step: Universitaly (national pre-enrolment platform for international students). You apply to the university first, then pre-enrol on Universitaly, and that pre-enrolment is what releases your visa file to the consulate. Your certificate must be recognised through Consular Dichiarazione di Valore (DoV), or CIMEA Statement of Comparability as an accepted alternative, and documents must be apostilled. There is no APS-style pre-check.

WASSCE and NECO both count as twelve years of schooling, so no bridging year is required. Nigerian applicants must add UTME results at Sapienza and Bologna; Sapienza asks Ghanaian applicants for six or more subjects at C6 or better with an aggregate of 36 or lower. KCSE is accepted directly, with Sapienza naming a mean grade of C+. The South African NSC and the Moroccan Baccalauréat are accepted directly at every university in our dataset, subject to the same recognition paperwork.

Restricted-access courses add an entrance exam. Medicine in English, taught at Sapienza, Bologna, Milan Statale, Naples, Padua, Tor Vergata and Turin, is entered through IMAT, and the technical universities use their own tests — Politecnico di Milano’s TOL, or TOLC-I and SAT.

Those entrance-exam courses close in April to June, months before the ordinary pre-enrolment deadline, so a medicine plan started in September is a plan for the following year. Country detail sits on the corridor pages, for example studying in Italy from Nigeria.

Tuition and scholarships

Public tuition is €200–4,200 per year at bachelor’s level and €200–4,200 per year at master’s, plus the regional right-to-study tax and stamp duty of €140–160 per year, which everyone pays. Medicine at public universities sits in the same band, €200–4,200 per year.

Where you land inside that band is set by your citizenship, not your grades. Uganda and Zambia are on the lowest tier at Bologna and Turin; Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Egypt, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Morocco sit one step above. Sapienza puts all nine in its cheapest band.

Private universities are a different order: €3,400–17,000 per year at bachelor’s and €7,280–18,550 per year at master’s. Bocconi assesses every applicant, EU and non-EU alike, for need-based aid, which is how its master’s fee falls to €3,710–18,550 per year.

Tuition is the small number; living costs at €900–1,300 per month are the large one. The funding routes that matter are the Italian government scholarship, regional DSU right-to-study grants and Erasmus Mundus, all set out on Italy scholarships.

How to apply

1. Shortlist three to five programmes by language of instruction first, then subject, then city rent. Check the fee band that applies to your citizenship at each one.
2. Start recognition early. Order the Dichiarazione di Valore from the consulate or a CIMEA Statement of Comparability, and have certificates apostilled and translated. This step runs late most often.
3. Apply directly to each university on its own portal, within its internal deadline. Application fees run from free at Bologna, Naples and Pisa to €100 at Bocconi.
4. Sit any entrance exam. IMAT for medicine in English, and TOL, TOLC-I or SAT for the technical universities, are held months before general admission.
5. Prove language. For an English-taught course, submit the test or exemption letter your university accepts. For an Italian-taught, open-access course, an Italian certificate at B2 — CELI, CILS, PLIDA or CISIA ITA-L2, issued within the last three years — is now a ministerial condition checked at pre-enrolment.
6. Pre-enrol on Universitaly with your chosen course and upload the recognition documents: University-set pre-enrolment deadline via Universitaly, generally by ~30 September (April-June instead for entrance-exam courses e.g. Medicine, Architecture); visa application to the consulate no later than 30 November — binding, per MUR procedure confirmed valid for both the 2026/27 and 2027/28 cycles. For 2027/28 entry the ministerial deadline moves a month earlier, to 31 October 2027.
7. Book the consulate or VFS appointment as soon as pre-enrolment is confirmed, with funds evidence of €10,179.85 per year and insurance covering 30,000 euro. The full list is on the Italy student visa page.
8. After arrival, apply for the residence permit within eight working days, paying €116.46.