Italy or Switzerland?

The cheapest realistic route into Western Europe for a family without money — tuition scales to income, and regional scholarships pay you to study.

World-class research at low tuition, gated by the hardest admission and the highest cost of living in Europe.

Fees are calculated from family income (the ISEE assessment), and DSU regional scholarships cover tuition, a living grant, housing and meals for students below an income threshold — a package that exists nowhere else in Europe at this scale.

ETH Zurich and EPFL charge among the lowest tuition of any top-tier research university on earth — the wall here is entrance and living costs, not fees.

• Income-scaled tuition plus DSU scholarships: for a modest-income family this can be the cheapest option on the entire list, cheaper than staying home.
• Medicine taught in English, entered through the IMAT exam — one of the few honest routes into European medicine for an international student.
• Design, architecture and fashion at Politecnico and the Milan schools, sitting inside the industry itself.
• EU degree, EU mobility afterwards, and a 12-month post-study residence permit to find work.
• Cost of living outside Milan is genuinely low by Western European standards.

• Tuition at the federal institutes is a fraction of what comparable universities charge internationals.
• Research funding per student is exceptional, and PhD positions are salaried jobs with real wages.
• Deep tech, pharmaceuticals and quantitative finance all hire locally at very high salaries.
• Central location in Europe with infrastructure that simply works.
• Graduate salaries are the highest in Europe by a distance.

• Italian is essential for daily life and for most jobs; English-taught degrees do not change that once you step off campus.
• Bureaucracy is slow and document-heavy — the permesso di soggiorno process is a rite of passage, not an anecdote.
• Graduate salaries and the domestic job market are weak compared to Germany or the Netherlands; many graduates leave to work.
• DSU scholarships are administered per region with different rules, deadlines and reliability — the paperwork is the actual hurdle.
• University structures are old-fashioned: large lectures, oral exams, little pastoral support.
• Housing in Milan is expensive and competitive, closer to a northern European capital than to the rest of Italy.

• Cost of living is the highest in Europe — rent alone can exceed a full year's tuition elsewhere.
• Bachelor's teaching is often in German or French; the English offering is mostly at master's level.
• First-year attrition at the federal institutes is deliberately high: getting in is not staying in.
• Non-EU work permits are quota-limited, so staying after graduation is competitive even with an offer.
• Housing near the universities is scarce and expensive enough to determine where you can study.

Tuition depends on assessed family income, and can fall to nothing. Add a DSU grant and the state effectively pays you to study. The catch is entirely in the paperwork: certified, translated income documents, on time, per region.

Low tuition, extreme living costs. Budget for the city, not for the university — that inversion catches families out.

Programme-specific: TOLC entrance tests for many degrees, IMAT for English-taught medicine, portfolio for design. Grades matter, personal essays barely exist. Compass evaluates Italian programmes deterministically, including the DSU and financial-fit picture.

Direct admission for internationals is restrictive; many applicants need a recognised qualification plus an entrance examination. Master's entry is easier for a strong bachelor's graduate.

A 12-month permit to look for work after graduating, and EU-wide mobility with the degree. Working in Italy itself is the harder half — the language and the market both bite.

Six months to look for work after graduation, then an employer-sponsored permit subject to quotas for non-EU nationals.

• Arts & Design
• Engineering
• Business & Economics
• Medicine & Health
• Humanities & Social Sciences

• Computer Science
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• Natural Sciences
• Business & Economics