More International Students Chose to Study in France Last Year

The French Ministry of Higher Education has released the data for the 2024-2025 academic year, and the news is good. Last year, 443,500 international students studied in France, indicating that France continues to grow its international student enrollments. Here’s a look at the data and what it reveals about international education in France.

Steady growth in enrollments

France saw a 3 percent increase in international enrollments from the 2023-2024 period to the 2024-2025 period. This matches the two previous academic year periods after a sharp increase in 2021-2022 when the COVID-19 lockdowns lifted in France.

International students made up 15 percent of France’s student population, which matches the previous year’s percentage. Most of those students (about 63 percent) enrolled in French universities, while 15 percent chose French business schools and 8 percent went to engineering schools. In the last five years, France’s business schools have seen a 52 percent increase in international enrollments.

Where do students come from?

The majority of international students in France come from Morocco, Algeria, China, Italy, and Senegal. French-speaking African countries represented more than a third of the international students, and sub-Saharan Africa saw a 7 percent growth in enrollments since last year.

Spain also sent more students to France this year, with 8 percent more Spanish students attending French universities than in 2023-2024. Similarly, Italy sent 5 percent more students, and Ukraine increased its numbers by 11 percent.

What’s next?

France has seen a steady increase in international students in the last five years. As in many countries, the post-pandemic spike in enrollments has slowed, but France continues to grow in popularity with students from around the world. It was featured in our Top Ten Places in the World to Study 2025 and is also rising in other rankings, with 27 institutions in the 2025 Shanghai Rankings and four in the Top 100 of the Times Higher Education Rankings for 2025.

France remains the most popular country for students from the Francophone world, with strong ties to former colonies and overseas territories. But the country also attracts a large number of non-French-speaking students from Asia and Europe. In the last five years, France has increased the number of English-taught programs (ETPs) it offers by approximately 10 percent, and in 2024, the country ranked just behind Ireland, Germany, and the Netherlands for total ETPs offered.

European students are choosing France at a higher rate than before, and while 2024-2025 saw a slight drop in students from North America, France hopes to capitalize on the academic uncertainty in the USA and is actively recruiting both international students who are opting away from the USA and research students from American institutions through various initiatives, like the #ChooseFrance program or Aix Marseille University’s Safe Place for Science program.

Earlier this year, in response to cuts to research funding in the USA, Philippe Baptiste, France’s minister for higher education and research, urged the country’s research institutions to find ways to attract talent from the USA. He asked for “concrete proposals on the topic, both on priority technologies and scientific fields,” and assured that the French government was “committed, and will rise to the occasion.”