English-Taught Degrees in France for International Students

It is a Tuesday morning on the Sciences Po campus in Reims, in a former Jesuit college north-east of Paris, and a first-year seminar on comparative politics is just getting going. The professor is French. Half the room is not: a student from Mumbai, two from the United States, one from Lagos, a Pole, a Brazilian. Not a word of the next ninety minutes will be in French. The readings, the debate, the essay due Friday — all of it is in English, on a full three-year bachelor’s degree that confers the same Sciences Po diploma as the Paris campus. Down the line in Palaiseau, a different cohort is doing multivariable calculus in English on École Polytechnique’s Bachelor of Science. This is the part of French higher education that breaks the stereotype most people arrive with: you no longer need French to earn a French degree.

Here is the bottom line. France now offers more than 1,500 fully English-taught programmes, the great majority at master’s level, according to Campus France, the government agency that catalogues them. They are taught, examined and supervised end to end in English; at a public university they cost the same as any French-taught degree — €178–€254/year for EU students, €2,895–€3,941 for non-EU students — and you enter on an IELTS Academic 6.5+ or TOEFL iBT 90+ score rather than a French certificate. The catch is not money or language; it is that the catalogue is uneven — deep at master’s level and inside the grandes écoles, thinner at ordinary bachelor’s level — so this route rewards knowing exactly where to look.

This guide is the focused companion to our complete guide to studying in France — read that for the full picture on visas, Parcoursup, the CAF housing benefit, living costs, scholarships and the APS post-study permit, which apply to every route. Here I stay on one question: what does English-taught study in France actually look like, which institutions and fields hold the programmes, what it costs, what English score gets you in, and how to decide between an English track and a French one.

English-Taught Study in France, Key Data 2025/2026

Source: Campus France ‘Programs taught in English’ catalogue; Ministère de l’Enseignement Supérieur tuition decree; service-public.fr (APS); CAF.

What “English-taught” really means in the French system

French higher education is, by default, a French-language system, and for most of its history a non-French speaker had a narrow set of programmes to choose from. What changed is deliberate. Over the past fifteen years the grandes écoles and research universities, pushed by the “Bienvenue en France” strategy and the drive to climb the global rankings, built a parallel layer of programmes taught entirely in English, specifically to recruit international students and faculty. The result is the 1,500-plus figure Campus France quotes — but it describes a set of programmes, not English-speaking institutions.

That distinction matters more than it sounds. With a handful of exceptions you are not choosing an “English university” the way you would in the UK or the Netherlands; you are choosing one English-medium programme attached to an institution that otherwise runs in French. Your degree is delivered in English end to end, but the campus, the administration, the préfecture and the city around you run in French. The coursework asks nothing of your French; daily life asks a great deal. That gap is the most underrated fact about this route, and we come back to it below.

The offering is also uneven by level and field, and that unevenness is the first thing to grasp before you start searching. It is deep at master’s level and shallow at ordinary public-university bachelor’s level. It is deep in business, engineering, the natural sciences, economics, data science and international relations — fields where English is already the international working language — and thin in law, medicine, most of the humanities and anything that touches French professional licensing or the civil-service track. The institutions where English goes deepest are the grandes écoles and business schools, which were international by design long before the public universities caught up. So before you fall for the idea of “studying in France in English,” settle two questions: is your field on the English list, and at what level. For most applicants the answer is that the master’s route and the grande école route are wide open, while an ordinary public-university bachelor’s in English is the hard one to find.

Where the English programmes actually are

If you treat the 1,500-plus number as a single pool you will drown in it. The useful move is to go straight to the institutions that run large, established English catalogues, because that is where the depth, the reputation and the recruiter pipeline concentrate. The table below curates the strongest English-taught institutions by what they are known for and what their English offering looks like, each linked to our dedicated guide where one exists, otherwise to its profile in the College Council universities Atlas. Treat the order as a reading sequence, not a league table — overall world ranks flatter large research universities and punish the small, intense grandes écoles, so what an institution is known for matters more than any single position.

Sciences Po is the clearest entry point at bachelor’s level: its Reims and Le Havre campuses run full three-year undergraduate programmes taught entirely in English in the social sciences and international affairs, and its graduate school, the Paris School of International Affairs (PSIA), is almost wholly English-medium. École Polytechnique, the most selective engineering school in the country and the flagship of Institut Polytechnique de Paris, runs a three-year, English-taught Bachelor of Science in mathematics, physics, computer science and economics, plus English Master of Science tracks. On the research-university side, Université Paris-Saclay — global top 15 for mathematics — carries one of the largest English master’s catalogues in France across maths, physics, computer science and the life sciences, with a growing set of English bachelor’s, and Université Paris Cité and Sorbonne and PSL add English master’s in the sciences, economics and data.

The business schools are where English has been the working language longest. HEC Paris, consistently a top-five European business school, runs its Master in Management, MBA and most specialised master’s in English; ESSEC and ESCP run English Global BBAs and master’s across multi-campus models that rotate students through Paris, London, Berlin, Madrid or Turin; EDHEC and EM Lyon carry deep English master’s offerings; and INSEAD, on its Fontainebleau campus, runs one of the world’s most selective MBAs entirely in English. For elite engineering beyond Polytechnique, CentraleSupélec runs English Master of Science programmes inside the Paris-Saclay cluster.

Two structural points are worth pinning down. The grandes écoles and business schools, not the public universities, hold the deepest English offering — they were international before “internationalisation” became policy, and their MBAs, Master in Management tracks and BSc programmes are English by design. And the strongest English bachelor’s degrees are scarce and selective: Sciences Po’s Reims and Le Havre programmes, École Polytechnique’s Bachelor of Science and the business-school BBAs are the realistic English-medium undergraduate routes, while most ordinary public-university bachelor’s still teach in French. If you want to compare the institutions side by side — programmes, fees and admission data — our best universities in France guide and the universities Atlas hold every French institution in one place.

How the levels and fields break down

Before you search a single programme, map your level and field onto the English catalogue, because the offering is anything but uniform. This is the first thing I ask a family to pin down, because it decides whether the rest of the plan is realistic.

Master’s level is the open door. This is where the 1,500-plus number really lives. Almost every top-20 French institution runs English-taught master’s in management, finance, engineering, computer science, data science, economics and international relations. A non-French speaker with a relevant bachelor’s has a genuinely deep menu here, at public-university prices on the university side and grande école prices on the school side.

Bachelor’s level is narrower but real. The clearest English-medium undergraduate routes are Sciences Po’s Reims and Le Havre campuses (full three-year programmes in English), École Polytechnique’s Bachelor of Science (three years, maths-physics-CS-economics), a growing set of English licences at Paris-Saclay, and the business-school BBAs at ESSEC, ESCP and EDHEC. Outside those, English bachelor’s are uncommon, and French-taught undergraduate programmes expect TCF, DELF or DALF at B2.

The MBA and specialised-master tier is almost entirely English. INSEAD’s MBA, HEC’s MBA and Master in Management, and the specialised “MSc” and “MS” programmes across the business schools are English-medium by default, drawing globally mixed cohorts. This is the part of French higher education that looks and feels most like the international norm.

Where English thins out fast: medicine and pharmacy (taught in French, licensing-bound — see our study medicine in France guide), law, education, and the bulk of the humanities outside dedicated international master’s. If your field is here, plan on French.

What it costs — the language doesn’t change the bill

The most important cost fact about English-taught study in France is that the language of instruction does not change your tuition. An English-taught master’s at a public university costs exactly what the French-taught one does. Your real spend is driven by which kind of institution you choose and your nationality, not by the language.

At a public university — Paris-Saclay, Sorbonne, PSL, Université Paris Cité — EU/EEA students pay statutory tuition of about €178/year for the licence and €254/year for the master’s, plus the compulsory CVEC student-life contribution of around €105. Non-EU students pay the institutional rates introduced in 2019: about €2,895/year for the licence and €3,941/year for the master’s, with many institutions still applying partial exemptions closer to €2,770/€3,770. Even the full non-EU rate undercuts UK or US tuition by an order of magnitude, and it is identical whether the programme is delivered in French or English.

At a grande école or business school, English usually comes attached to a real fee, because that is where the prestigious English programmes live. CentraleSupélec charges around €4,000/year for its engineering tracks; École Polytechnique’s Bachelor of Science runs several thousand euros a year; HEC’s two-year Master in Management is around €57,700 in total; ESSEC and ESCP sit around €17,000–€21,000/year; and INSEAD’s MBA exceeds €100,000 all-in. These are investments justified by labour-market access, not by the language of instruction.

The subsidies that make France cheap to live in apply to English-track students just the same. The CAF housing benefit pays €150–€230/month to any student renting an eligible home, regardless of nationality or language of study; CROUS residences rent at €200–€400/month and the canteen meal is €3.30; and student health cover through the Sécurité Sociale is free. For the full living-cost picture city by city, see our cost of living for students in France guide.

English Degree Routes in France at a Glance

What you pay and how you apply depends on the institution type, not the language.

Source: Ministère de l’Enseignement Supérieur tuition decree 2025/26; school websites; Sciences Po income-indexed tuition. Confirm the exact figure on the programme page for your intake year.

How to find and apply to English programmes

There is no single national “apply in English” button; the route depends on the institution. Work out which applies to you and the process simplifies.

Find the programmes first. Campus France maintains a searchable catalogue of programmes taught in English, filterable by level and field; the grandes écoles and business schools also list their English programmes prominently on their own sites. Read each programme page for the language requirement, fees and deadline, because these vary far more than at a public university.

The grandes écoles and business schools run their own portals, outside Parcoursup and (mostly) outside Études en France. Sciences Po uses a unified online application with essays and a video interview, deadline around mid-January. HEC Paris runs the SAI (Admission International) for its Master in Management; the MBA admits separately. ESSEC, ESCP, EDHEC and EM Lyon use dedicated international tracks. École Polytechnique runs file-based admission for its English Bachelor and Master of Science. INSEAD admits its MBA on a fully English file with GMAT or GRE across three intakes a year. Deadlines are early and school-specific — many close between October and March.

Public-university English master’s are applied for directly, or — for candidates from over 65 countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East — through the Études en France procedure managed by Campus France, which integrates admission with visa pre-clearance. EU students applying to a public bachelor’s still use Parcoursup. The full mechanics of both systems are in our complete guide to studying in France.

The English certificate is the one document nearly every English programme requires: IELTS Academic 6.5+ or TOEFL iBT 90+, rising to IELTS 7.0 / TOEFL 100 at HEC’s MiM, Sciences Po’s PSIA and INSEAD. Some accept Cambridge C1 Advanced or the Duolingo English Test; many waive the test if your previous degree was taught in English. Confirm the accepted certificates per programme.

The French question — be honest with yourself

Here is the part the brochures soft-pedal, and the thing I tell every family considering this route. An English-taught degree solves your academic language problem completely. It does not touch your life language problem at all.

Inside the lecture hall, an English programme asks nothing of your French. Outside it, France runs in French: the préfecture where you validate your visa and renew your residence permit, the landlord and the apartment listing, the bank that opens your account, the CAF office that pays your housing benefit, the doctor at a small practice, and — crucially — most internships and part-time jobs. France mandates internships (stages) in most grande école curricula, and a stage in finance, consulting, luxury or industry outside the handful of fully international employers will expect working French. The same is true of the graduate job market: a non-EU graduate keeps the legal right to stay via the APS and Passeport Talent regardless of the language of their degree, but the practical ceiling on jobs outside tech and international firms is B2 French.

So treat French not as a cost but as the highest-return investment you can make alongside an English degree. Reach A2–B1 in your first year — the free classes your school’s language centre runs make this realistic — and daily life, the CAF claim, housing and internships all open up. Push toward B2 by graduation and you turn a degree that let you study in France into one that lets you stay and work in France. The students who get the most out of this route are the ones who took the English programme to get in, and learned French to stay.

English-taught France versus the alternatives

France is one of several European systems that built an English-medium layer; the right choice depends on what you weigh most.

Against English-taught degrees in Germany, the trade is value versus prestige tier. Germany’s public universities charge €0 tuition (only a €150–€350 semester fee) on a deeper, 2,000-plus English catalogue concentrated in STEM, which is unbeatable on price. France costs a little more at public level and a lot more at grande école level, but it offers something Germany does not: the grandes écoles and a top-tier business-school cluster (HEC, INSEAD, ESSEC, ESCP) whose English MBAs and Master in Management tracks sit at the very top of European rankings. Choose Germany for free, English STEM at scale; choose France for the elite professional-school tier and a stronger English bachelor’s offering at Sciences Po and Polytechnique.

Against the Netherlands, France trails on breadth of English bachelor’s — the Dutch built the largest English undergraduate catalogue on the continent — but wins on the existence of the grandes écoles and on cost at the public-university level once CAF is counted. Against the UK, France is dramatically cheaper (UK international tuition runs £24,000–£40,000) while offering comparable elite names in business and a unique engineering-school tier, at the price of a thinner English bachelor’s menu and the French-for-daily-life requirement.

It comes down to this: France is the strongest English-medium destination in Europe if your target is a grande école, a top business school, an English master’s at a research university, or one of the few elite English bachelor’s — and a weaker one if you want a wide choice of ordinary English-taught bachelor’s, where Germany and the Netherlands win.

How College Council helps

We built College Council to remove the two things that most often derail an English-taught France application: a weak English score and a chaotic, last-minute, multi-portal process.

Every English-medium French programme imposes an English-language test, and the selective ones set a high bar — IELTS 7.0 or TOEFL iBT 100 at HEC’s Master in Management, Sciences Po’s PSIA and INSEAD. Our TOEFL app runs full TOEFL iBT practice tests with AI-graded speaking and writing feedback — the closest thing to a mock exam you can do from home — and most candidates need 8–14 weeks to move from a 60–75 baseline into the 90+ band these programmes expect. If your plan also spans the US, prepare the digital SAT once in our SAT app and apply broadly off a single effort.

The harder part is judgement: which English programmes are real and which are thin, how your matura or diploma converts into realistic offer ranges, how to time the school-specific deadlines that close as early as October, and whether to pair the English degree with French from week one. That is what we work through with families, drawing on the same university data that powers this guide. Register on College Council and run your profile through app.college-council.com/chances: the engine maps your diploma onto realistic offer ranges across the French institutions you are weighing. You can browse every one of them — programmes, fees and admission data — in our universities Atlas.

Frequently Asked Questions

Summary — is an English-taught French degree right for you?

France runs one of the strongest English-medium offerings in Europe, but it is concentrated, not universal. If your target is a top business school (HEC, INSEAD, ESSEC, ESCP, EDHEC), an elite engineering school (École Polytechnique, CentraleSupélec), an English master’s at a leading research university (Paris-Saclay, PSL, Sorbonne, Paris Cité), or one of the few elite English bachelor’s (Sciences Po Reims and Le Havre, École Polytechnique’s BSc), France gives you a world-class English degree at a price that ranges from negligible (public university, EU student) to a serious-but-justified investment (grande école). Add CAF, CROUS and free student health cover — paid on an English programme exactly as on a French one — and the cost of living drops below the headline rents.

It is the wrong route if you want a wide choice of ordinary English-taught bachelor’s degrees, where Germany and the Netherlands win, or if you are unwilling to learn any French at all. The legal right to stay and work after a French master’s does not depend on language, but the practical job market outside tech does — which is the whole case for treating French as part of the plan, not an afterthought.

Next Steps

1. Confirm your field is on the English list — deep for business, engineering, sciences and IR at master’s level; narrow for English bachelor’s and thin for medicine, law and the humanities. Search Campus France’s English-programme catalogue.
2. Pick the institution type honestly — public university for cost, grande école for prestige and selection, business school for ambition and budget — then shortlist in our best universities in France guide and the universities Atlas.
3. Book your English test — most programmes want IELTS 6.5+ or TOEFL iBT 90+ (top schools 7.0 / 100); prepare in our TOEFL app, and the SAT too if you are also applying to the US.
4. Start French anyway — A2–B1 by the end of year one transforms daily life, the CAF claim, internships and your odds of staying.
5. See where you stand — register on College Council and run your profile through app.college-council.com/chances; we hold every university, its admission requirements and how to get in.

Read Also

• Studying in France: complete guide for international students — the full picture on visas, Parcoursup, CAF and careers
• Best universities in France for international students — the institutions ranked and profiled
• English-taught degrees in Germany — the free, deeper STEM alternative
• Scholarships to study in France — Eiffel, Émile Boutmy and school foundation funding
• Cost of living for students in France — a realistic city-by-city budget

Sources and Methodology

Institution profiles are drawn from College Council’s Atlas dataset of French higher-education institutions and cross-checked against each school’s website. High-stakes current-cycle figures (programme counts, tuition, English-test thresholds, deadlines) were verified against Campus France, the relevant tuition decree and official school sources in June 2026; public tuition is set by annual decree, non-EU institutional fees vary, and English-programme catalogues change yearly, so always confirm the exact figure and the language of instruction on the relevant programme page for your intake year.

1. Campus France — Programs taught in English in France (1,500+ English-taught programmes; searchable by level and field) and the Études en France procedure (non-EU admission and visa pre-clearance, 65+ countries)
2. Ministère de l’Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche — annual tuition decree, 2025/26 (Licence ~€178, Master ~€254; non-EU €2,895 / €3,941, partial exemptions to €2,770 / €3,770; CVEC ~€105) — same fee regardless of language of instruction
3. Sciences Po — Reims and Le Havre English-taught undergraduate programmes; PSIA graduate school; income-indexed tuition €0–€14,900 and Émile Boutmy scholarship
4. École Polytechnique / Institut Polytechnique de Paris — three-year English Bachelor of Science and English Master of Science programmes
5. HEC Paris, ESSEC, ESCP, EDHEC, EM Lyon, INSEAD — English-taught Master in Management, MBA, MSc and Global BBA programmes; programme-specific tuition (HEC MiM ~€57,700 for two years; ESSEC/ESCP €17,000–€21,000/yr; INSEAD MBA €100,000+) and IELTS/TOEFL thresholds
6. ETS / IELTS — TOEFL iBT and IELTS Academic score requirements (typical entry IELTS 6.5 / TOEFL iBT 90; selective tracks 7.0 / 100)
7. service-public.fr — APS post-study residence permit (12–24 months) and Passeport Talent for non-EU master’s graduates, irrespective of language of study
8. CAF — caf.fr housing benefit (APL / ALS) (€150–€230/month typical for students, any nationality, any language of programme)
9. College Council — Atlas higher-education dataset (French HEI identity, programme and location data) and internal advising experience with international applicant families