Elite Swiss universities vote to triple foreign student fees

ETH Board wants to triple fees for foreign students Keystone-SDA

Federal Institutes of Technology in Zurich and Lausanne (ETH Zurich and EPFL) have moved closer to tripling fees for foreign students. The ETH Board voted in favor of this at its last meeting, it was announced on Friday.

The ETH Board is thus taking into account the result of parliamentary votes on this subject, it wrote in the press release.

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According to the decision, the tripling of tuition fees will be introduced in the fall semester of 2025. As part of a transitional arrangement, students who are already enrolled will be able to complete their Bachelor’s or Master’s degree without an increase in fees.

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Currently, the fees for studying at ETH Zurich and EPFL amount to CHF730 per semester for both Swiss and foreign students.

Inflation-pegged fees

The ETH Board also proposes linking all tuition fees to the national index of consumer prices. This is to avoid a further devaluation of the income from tuition fees due to inflation.

However, the Board will not make a final decision on the changes until December, following a hearing in the ETH Domain and a consultation with the offices.

In March, the ETH Board had still spoken out against such an increase. At the time, it justified this with the importance of internationality and the ability to attract the best talent. “These remain important aspects for the ETH Board,” it wrote in Friday’s press release. Accompanying measures should therefore continue to make it possible for financially weak international students to study.

In the summer session, the House of Representtives decided that students with a foreign baccalaureate should in future pay at least three times as much in tuition fees as students with a Swiss baccalaureate. The responsible Senate committee has also spoken out in favor of an increase, but only by a factor of two.

The Senate will discuss this in the autumn session. The issue is expected to be resolved in both chambers by the end of the year.

At some Swiss universities, the fees for domestic and foreign students are already different. At the University of St Gallen, for example, domestic students pay CHF1,229 for a Bachelor’s degree, while foreign students pay CHF3,129.

Translated from German by DeepL/mga

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