Athens University of Economics and Business: A Guide for International Students

A weekday morning on Patission Avenue, one of the broad, traffic-heavy arteries running north out of central Athens. Among the apartment blocks and the kiosks stands a stern interwar building in pale stone — the main hall of the Athens University of Economics and Business, the institution that Greeks have called the ASOEE for a century. Inside, the lecture is on derivatives pricing, and the students filing in will, a decade from now, be running treasury desks in Athens and London, founding fintech start-ups out of the university’s own ACEin incubator, or sitting in the research department of the Bank of Greece. This is not a sprawling comprehensive university with a faculty for everything. It does one thing — economics, business and information technology — and it has done it better than anyone else in the country since 1920.

Here is the bottom line for an international student. AUEB is Greece’s leading public university for economics and business, and while its overall world ranking is modest — the QS World University Rankings 2026 place it in the 951–1000 band (QS) — that number badly undersells it, because AUEB is a small specialist school and the league tables reward breadth, not depth. Judge it on what it actually teaches and the verdict inverts: its QS Master in Management 2026 ranks 60th in the world (score 59.2), its MBA is 37th in Europe, and its degrees are EU-recognised. For students who want to study in English, AUEB runs the BSc in International Business and Technology (IBT) — four years, 240 ECTS, taught entirely in English — at €6,000 a year (ibt.aueb.gr), in the heart of one of the cheapest student capitals in the European Union.

In this guide I will give you the international applicant’s view of AUEB: what it is genuinely strong at, the English-taught route in (the IBT bachelor’s and the English master’s), how admissions and the English requirement actually work, what it costs to study and live in central Athens, and what the degree is worth afterwards. It sits under our complete guide to studying in Greece, which covers the national system — free Greek-taught tuition, the Type D visa, the two admissions routes — that frames everything here.

AUEB at a Glance, 2025/2026

Source: AUEB and ibt.aueb.gr; QS TopUniversities 2026; College Council Atlas.

Why Athens University of Economics and Business?

The case for AUEB rests on focus. Greece has larger and more famous universities — the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Aristotle in Thessaloniki, the polytechnic NTUA — but none of them is the economics and business school the way AUEB is. It was founded in 1920 for exactly this purpose, and it is still, as Wikipedia records, “recognized as the leading institution for economic and business studies in Greece.” When a Greek bank, ministry or consultancy wants an economist or a finance graduate trained at home, this is the first place they look — and that reputation is the single most valuable asset an AUEB degree carries inside the country.

The second reason is the postgraduate brand, which genuinely travels. The overall league position is depressed by AUEB’s small size and narrow scope, the way every single-discipline school is penalised in rankings built around sprawling research output. The business master’s tables tell the truer story, because there AUEB competes head-to-head with much wealthier schools and holds its own. In the QS Business Masters Rankings 2026 its Master in Management is 60th in the world, its Master in Marketing sits in the 81–90 band, its Master in Business Analytics in the 101–150 band, and its MBA is 37th in Europe. For a public university in a country still digging out from a sovereign-debt crisis, outranking most of Europe in a management table is a real signal — and it is precisely the signal an international employer reads.

Then there is value in a serious location. The English-taught IBT bachelor’s costs €6,000 a year, the Greek-taught degrees are free, and living in Athens is among the cheapest of any EU capital. AUEB is not tucked away on a suburban campus: its main building sits on Patission Avenue in central Athens, a short walk from the National Archaeological Museum and the city’s commercial core, which puts students inside the internship and employer network rather than a bus ride from it. If your field is economics, finance, management or analytics and you want a recognised European degree without the London or Amsterdam price tag, AUEB is one of the strongest value plays on the continent. (For the wider menu of English-taught options in the country, see our guide to English-taught degrees in Greece.)

Academic strengths and notable programmes

AUEB is organised into three schools across eight departments, and the list is the institution’s identity in one glance. The School of Economic Sciences holds the Department of Economics (1955) and the Department of International and European Economic Studies (1991). The School of Business holds the Department of Business Administration (1955), the Department of Accounting and Finance, the Department of Marketing and Communication, and the Department of Management Science and Technology. The School of Information Sciences and Technology holds the Department of Informatics and the Department of Statistics. Economics, accounting, finance, marketing, management science and computing — and nothing else. Its research record is concentrated in exactly these fields: OpenAlex records the most-cited work clustering in monetary policy, fiscal policy, market dynamics, corporate finance and financial-risk modelling — the canon of a serious economics faculty, with a documented h-index of 238 and more than 460,000 citations across the catalogue.

For an international student, two routes matter.

The English-taught bachelor’s: BSc in International Business and Technology (IBT). This is AUEB’s flagship for the international market and the reason most non-Greek-speaking applicants are reading about it. Run out of the School of Information Sciences and Technology, the IBT is a four-year, 240-ECTS degree taught exclusively in English (ibt.aueb.gr), built at the seam between management and technology. The first two years cover the core — management, accounting, economics, strategy, negotiations, statistics, AI and data analytics — and in years three and four students pick one of two specialisation streams: Management, Leadership & Strategy, or Technology & Analytics. The pitch is a business degree with real digital and data content, taught in the disciplines AUEB is genuinely strongest in rather than as a generic English-language add-on.

English-taught master’s programmes. AUEB’s postgraduate catalogue is where its international reputation is built, and several programmes run in English. The MSc in Financial Management is one of its best-known finance master’s, and the business master’s as a group earn the QS rankings noted above. If your goal is a one-to-two-year specialist qualification in finance, management, marketing or analytics rather than a full bachelor’s, the English master’s route is often the cleaner fit — and Greece is far easier to enter in English at master’s level than at bachelor’s level.

The ranking picture, with nothing hidden, looks like this.

Admissions — the route in for international students

For an English-speaking applicant, the path into AUEB runs through the IBT bachelor’s or an English-taught master’s, not the free Greek-taught degrees (those require Greek to B2 and go through the Ministry’s July window, covered in the Greece hub).

The IBT admission is deliberately straightforward. You apply directly through the AUEB IBT application at ibt.aueb.gr, or via the national @SiG (Apply to Study in Greece) platform, and the required file is light: your high-school diploma and transcripts, an application and CV, and certified English fluency at B2 CEFR level — accepted through TOEFL, IELTS or TOEIC. A personal interview may be requested. Crucially, admission is rolling: applications are accepted throughout the year for a September start, so there is no single hard deadline — but places fill, so early application is the sensible move rather than the optional one. There is no published acceptance rate for the programme, and you should treat any figure claiming one as a guess: with rolling admission and an interview, the realistic read is that a solid academic record and a clear B2 English certificate make you competitive.

The English certificate is the document that decides most international applications, so treat it as the priority. B2 is the floor, corresponding to roughly IELTS 6.0 or TOEFL iBT in the high 70s to high 80s. Lock that score in early — it is the one piece of the file you fully control, and a strong, current English result removes the main friction from the whole application.

Costs — tuition and living in Athens

AUEB runs two completely separate fee worlds, and the families I advise routinely conflate them — so let me keep the two apart.

The English-taught BSc in International Business and Technology costs €6,000 per year, the same for EU and non-EU students, with no Greek required (ibt.aueb.gr). That is the headline number for the international reader, and it is modest by European standards — well below an English-taught business degree in the UK, the Netherlands or most of Western Europe. The Greek-taught undergraduate degrees, like all Greek public bachelor’s programmes, are tuition-free for everyone — but they are taught in Greek and require B2 Greek, which puts them out of reach for most international students unless you commit to the language first. English-taught master’s fees vary by programme and are set per course, so confirm the figure on the specific master’s page rather than assuming.

Living costs are where Athens, and Greece generally, quietly wins. Athens is a large capital, so it runs a little higher than the Greek regions, but it is still among the cheapest student cities in the EU. Per our Greece guide, a realistic monthly budget in the capital is €800–€1,100, and QS reckons an international student in Greece can comfortably cover all living expenses on about €8,000 a year. Students also get discounts of up to 50% on transport, travel and cultural events. Add it up and an IBT student’s all-in annual cost — €6,000 tuition plus roughly €8,000–€10,000 living in central Athens — lands around €14,000–€16,000 a year, less than a single year’s international tuition at many UK universities, with the Acropolis thrown in.

Student life — a downtown campus in a 24-hour capital

AUEB’s defining feature, beyond academics, is that it is genuinely downtown. Its historic main building stands on Patission Avenue in the centre of Athens, so the city is not somewhere students commute to — it is the campus’s backdrop. Museums, the commercial district, internships at banks and firms, and the city’s famously late, social nightlife are all within walking or short-metro distance. For a business student, that proximity to the working city is a real asset; the internship and networking opportunities of a capital are on the doorstep rather than a coach ride away.

Athens itself is a big, intense, multicultural capital — around 3.75 million people, the Acropolis on the skyline, neighbourhoods like Exarcheia (right by the university) and Psyrri thick with bars, music and cafés. The climate does a lot of the work: with roughly 250 days of sun a year, term life spills outdoors, onto café terraces and the steps of the plateia, and the islands and beaches are a cheap ferry ride away for the long weekends. There is a sizeable international and Erasmus community across Athenian universities, so an IBT student arriving with no Greek will not be the only foreigner in the room. For a fuller comparison of where to base yourself, see our guide to the best student cities in Greece.

Careers and reputation — what an AUEB degree is worth

Inside Greece, an AUEB degree is as strong a business credential as the country offers. With more than 75,000 alumni active in firms, banks, consultancies, ministries and start-ups, the university sits at the centre of the Greek economics and finance network, and a degree from here opens doors that a generalist degree does not. For the founder-minded, AUEB also runs its own startup incubator, the Athens Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (ACEin), where student and graduate teams build and pitch ventures. For economics, finance, management, marketing and analytics, this is the home-market gold standard.

Here is the caveat that applies to every Greek university, and the one I make sure families hear before they fall for the price tag: the domestic salary market is modest, and youth unemployment, though much improved since the 2010s crisis, still runs above the EU average. If your plan is to earn a top European salary the day you graduate while staying in Athens, calibrate expectations. Two things, though, tilt the calculus back in AUEB’s favour. First, portability: AUEB degrees are recognised across the EU under the Lisbon Recognition Convention and the ECTS system, so a graduate can carry the qualification straight into a stronger labour market anywhere in the Union — and the QS business-master’s standings (Management 60th, MBA Europe 37th) are exactly the signal an international recruiter recognises. Second, debt: graduating from a €6,000-a-year programme, or a free one, with little or no debt is itself a career advantage that compounds for years. The framing I give families is the same one I give for Greece as a whole — study at AUEB for the value and the recognised credential, and treat the entire EU, not just Athens, as your job market.

How College Council helps

We built College Council to take the guesswork out of applying abroad, and a specialist school like AUEB is exactly where good information is scarce — applicants conflate the free Greek-taught degrees with the €6,000 English IBT, miss that admission is rolling rather than deadline-driven, or don’t realise the postgraduate brand outranks the overall league position. Those are the details we map out with families, using the same data that powers this guide. AUEB has its full profile in our College Council Atlas — identity, location, programmes and admission data, Wikidata-keyed and verified. Start by creating a free College Council account and running your profile through our chances tool to see whether AUEB — and which other Greek and European programmes — actually fit you.

On the testing side, the IBT bachelor’s and AUEB’s English master’s run on a B2 English certificate (TOEFL, IELTS or TOEIC), and many of our families apply to Greece alongside the US or the UK, where the SAT matters too. Our TOEFL app delivers full TOEFL iBT practice tests with AI-graded speaking and writing feedback — the closest thing to a real mock you can run from home — and our SAT app runs the full digital SAT with adaptive practice, so you can prepare once and apply broadly. If you are still weighing Greek universities against one another, our roundup of the best universities in Greece puts AUEB in context against NKUA, Aristotle and the rest.

Frequently Asked Questions

Read Also

• Study in Greece: complete guide for international students — the national system, tuition, the Type D visa and admissions routes
• Best universities in Greece for international students 2026 — AUEB in context against NKUA, Aristotle and NTUA
• English-taught degrees in Greece — the full menu of bachelor’s and master’s taught in English
• Best student cities in Greece — Athens, Thessaloniki and beyond

Sources and Methodology

AUEB’s identity, location, founding year and programme data are drawn from the College Council Atlas (Wikidata-keyed canonical record Q1474656, cross-referenced with ROR, ETER and OpenAlex). Tuition, ranking and admission figures were verified against the university’s own pages and QS in February 2026; the English-taught fee and the rolling-admission deadline are recent and can change, so always confirm the exact figure on the IBT programme page for your intake year. We lead with AUEB’s subject and business-master’s standings rather than its overall world position, because for a small single-discipline school the subject strength is far more informative than the aggregate league table. The student count cited (~9,400) is QS’s verified enrolment figure; AUEB’s own materials describe “over 13,000 students,” and we use the cleaner QS number consistently.

1. AUEB — IBT programme — ibt.aueb.gr/program (English-taught BSc International Business and Technology; €6,000/year; 240 ECTS, 4 years; B2 English via TOEFL/IELTS/TOEIC; rolling admission; September intake; two specialisation streams)
2. AUEB official site — aueb.gr/en (three schools, eight departments; 75,000+ alumni; founded 1920 as the Athens School of Commercial Studies)
3. QS / TopUniversities — Athens University of Economics and Business profile (QS World University Rankings 2026 #951–1000; QS by Subject Business & Management #201–250; ~9,375 students)
4. QS / TopUniversities — QS Business Masters & MBA Rankings 2026 (Master in Management #60 worldwide, score 59.2; Marketing 81–90; Business Analytics 101–150; Finance 141–150; MBA Europe #37)
5. Times Higher Education — AUEB world rankings (business & economics subject 601–800; UN SDG Impact ranking)
6. Wikipedia — Athens University of Economics and Business (“recognized as the leading institution for economic and business studies in Greece”)
7. College Council — Atlas higher-education dataset (canonical record Q1474656; ROR 03s262162; ETER GR0013; OpenAlex I73142707 — h-index 238, 461,553 citations) and internal advising experience with international applicant families
8. College Council — Study in Greece complete guide (national tuition, living-cost and visa framework; ~€8,000/year living, €800–€1,100/month in Athens, 50% student discounts)