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Tunisia

A published national fee for foreign students: 5,000 dinars a year.

5/5
ingredients confirmed
Every ingredient this page asks for has a figure and a source.
Tuition
~$1.7k/yr
Living
~$550/mo
Single student, all in. Compared at country level, so capital cities and large metros run higher. The price level behind it prices the basket residents buy, and a foreign renter cannot reach the cheap end of local housing — poorer countries may still sit too low here.
Education
Works across the francophone world
Research impact 26th percentile globally — median of 8 ranked universities (CWTS Leiden Open Edition 2025). Research output, not teaching quality; it informs the band, it does not set the score.
Work after study
No post-study route, and a labour-market test
Safety
Mid
Seventy-seventh globally, and the single largest improvement recorded in this edition — every indicator either improved or held

More is being checked.

Where these figures came from

One row per ingredient. Open any of them for the source, how far we trust it, and when we last checked.

Tuition~$1.7k/yr

The Tunisian Ministry of Higher Education’s decree of 16 October 2019 sets annual registration fees for foreign students at public universities: 5,000 dinars for a licence, 6,000 for a master’s, 7,000 for a doctorate, 9,000 for engineering and architecture, and 15,000 for medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and veterinary medicine. Students nominated by their own governments under cooperation agreements register free. Read through two Tunisian orientation sites rather than the gazette itself, which agree with each other on the figures. Converted at TND 2.91 to the dollar. Re-read attempted and not finished: Tunisian fees for foreign students are set by a ministerial order of 16 October 2019 rather than by each university, which is the right kind of source, but only secondary summaries of that order could be read.

Confidence
printed in the source
Living~$550/mo

Pathoff judgement directed by evidence, not computed from it: the country’s position comes from the World Bank household consumption price level for 2024 (0.308 of the United States, CC BY 4.0 — the ICP benchmark carried forward annually by the World Bank’s own method); the US reference budget is ours. See the Pathoff method, section 12.

Single student, all in. Compared at country level, so capital cities and large metros run higher. The price level behind it prices the basket residents buy, and a foreign renter cannot reach the cheap end of local housing — poorer countries may still sit too low here.

Confidence
made by us from the source
EducationWorks across the francophone world

Pathoff education rubric (the Pathoff method, section 9-1), degree band "Locally solid, externally unknown": The degree follows the French model and is accepted across francophone Africa and, with an equivalence procedure, in France; the engineering schools and medical faculties have a real regional reputation. At the top of the band, short of the one above because outside that bloc no Tunisian institution is a name.

Research impact 26th percentile globally — median of 8 ranked universities (CWTS Leiden Open Edition 2025). Research output, not teaching quality; it informs the band, it does not set the score.

Confidence
made by us from the source
Work after studyNo post-study route, and a labour-market test

Pathoff outcome rubric (the Pathoff method, section 10-2), degree outcome band "A route you cannot plan around": Graduation gives no period to stay, and the labour code requires an employer to establish that no Tunisian could fill the post before a foreign worker’s contract is approved. The outcome turns on a labour market with high graduate unemployment rather than on the graduate.

Confidence
made by us from the source
Rule
No change known to us
Last checked
2026-09
SafetyMid

Global Peace Index 2026: rank 77 of 163, score 1.947. Converted by the Pathoff GPI formula (GPI in lib/scoring.ts)

Seventy-seventh globally, and the single largest improvement recorded in this edition — every indicator either improved or held

Confidence
made by us from the source

What it is like here

Tunisia is one of the few countries anywhere that sets the price of a foreign student’s degree by ministerial decree and prints it: a licence costs 5,000 dinars a year, an engineering diploma 9,000, medicine 15,000. In dollars that is under two thousand for a French-system degree in a country an hour from Europe. Teaching is in French and Arabic, and nothing follows graduation.

How the process works

1

Apply through the ministry, not the university

Foreign applications are routed through the Directorate General of International Cooperation.

⏱ 4–8 months
2

Expect to work in French

Teaching is in French and Arabic; English-taught programmes are rare.

⏱ 6–18 months
3

Student visa, then the residence card

The card is applied for after arrival and renewed annually.

⏱ 2–5 months

Where students go

Tunis
The engineering schools, the medical faculty, and the jobs
Sfax / Sousse
Full universities at lower cost, and no English at all

Open any ingredient above to see where its figure came from, how far we trust it and when we last checked. Nothing here is a substitute for the official source. Last reviewed 2026-09-04.

Photograph of Tunisia by Habib M'henni, licensed CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.