Student fees remain highly varied, report says

An annual analysis by the European Commission’s education agency has found that there is still a mixed bag of approaches to higher education tuition fees across Europe.

The analysis studied 43 higher education systems in 38 different countries, finding that nine of them charge no fees at all for home students studying for their first degree. These nine systems are in Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Malta, Norway, Scotland, Sweden and Turkey.

By contrast, in 11 higher education systems, all first-cycle students pay fees, the Eurydice report says. The remaining 23 systems fall somewhere between these two extremes, with some first-cycle students paying fees while others, for example students from low-income families, are exempt.