Measured by how much of the bill for universities and colleges the state pays, the countries closest to free higher education are Norway (91.2% of spending on tertiary institutions came from government in 2023), Luxembourg (88.3%) and Iceland (87.9%), according to the OECD’s Education at a Glance database. Costa Rica, Austria, Finland, Romania, Germany, Slovakia and Belgium complete the top 10. In most of these countries, public universities charge their own citizens no tuition at all, only a small semester or registration fee. The catch is that several of them, including Norway since 2023, Finland since 2017 and Sweden, now charge students from outside the EU and EEA.
What “free” means in the OECD’s 2023 spending data
Almost every country already provides free schooling. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights says education “shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages”, and the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights asks states to move towards free higher education step by step. So when people search for countries with free education, they nearly always mean university: can you get a degree without paying tuition?
No single index answers that. Tuition rules differ by nationality, by degree level and, in federal countries, by state. The most comparable measure is the one used here. For each country, the OECD reports the share of all spending on tertiary institutions that comes from government sources. The rest comes from private sources (tuition paid by households, plus money from businesses and other private bodies, for example for contract research) and from international sources. A country where public universities charge no tuition ends up with a government share near 90%. A country that funds universities mainly through fees ends up far lower.
This figure has limits. It is a share of spending on institutions, so it leaves out rent, food and books, which students pay everywhere. It also leaves out stipends paid directly to students. Denmark is the clearest example: its universities are tuition-free, and on top of that students over 18 get a monthly grant called Statens Uddannelsesstøtte (SU). Because that grant goes to the student, not the university, Denmark ranks 13th here, at 81.5%. The data also covers only countries that report to the OECD, fewer than 40 of them for 2023, so Argentina and Sri Lanka are missing even though university is free there.
The top 10 by government share of university spending
| Rank | Country | Government share of spending on tertiary institutions, 2023 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Norway | 91.2% |
| 2 | Luxembourg | 88.3% |
| 3 | Iceland | 87.9% |
| 4 | Costa Rica | 87.9% |
| 5 | Austria | 87.7% |
| 6 | Finland | 87.7% |
| 7 | Romania | 82.8% |
| 8 | Germany | 82.7% |
| 9 | Slovakia | 82.3% |
| 10 | Belgium | 82.2% |
Some of the gaps are tiny. Iceland (87.91%) is only just ahead of Costa Rica (87.86%), and Austria (87.70%) only just ahead of Finland (87.66%). Just below the top 10 come Slovenia (82.1%), Sweden (81.7%), Denmark (81.5%), Türkiye (80.4%) and Estonia (80.0%). The OECD average is 68.2%, meaning that across the developed world students, their families and other private payers cover a bit over a quarter (27.8%) of university costs.
Norway, Iceland and Finland: free for citizens, not for everyone
Norway comes first because it has almost no private money in its universities: just 7.0% of spending came from private sources in 2023 and 1.8% from abroad. Public higher education costs nothing for Norwegians, and the Ministry of Education and Research covers the cost of teaching. Students still pay a compulsory fee to their student welfare organisation (studentsamskipnad), typically around NOK 650 per semester as of 2024, which helps pay for services such as housing, canteens, bookshops and kindergartens.
Until recently that was true for everyone. Higher education in Norway had historically been free regardless of nationality, but in 2023 it brought in tuition fees for students from outside the EU, the EEA and Switzerland. Those fees range from about NOK 80,000 to NOK 400,000 a year. Since then, lists that call Norway “free for all” are out of date.
Finland made the same change earlier. Its public universities charged no tuition until 2017. From the autumn semester of that year, students from outside the EEA pay at least €1,500 a year, and typical fees run from about €6,000 to €18,000 depending on the university and programme. For Finnish and other EEA students, degrees are still free. Sweden follows the same pattern: no fees for Swedish, EU, EEA and Swiss citizens, but typically SEK 80,000 to SEK 200,000 a year for others. Iceland’s state universities charge no tuition, only a registration fee, and loans come from the Icelandic Student Loan Fund.
Germany’s 2014 abolition and Baden-Württemberg’s €1,500 exception
Germany is the country most often called free for everyone, and that is mostly right. Its public universities are funded by the 16 federal states and charge no tuition, whatever the student’s nationality. What students do pay is a semester contribution (Semesterbeitrag), usually €150 to €350. It covers the student affairs organisation (Studentenwerk), the student union and, at many universities, a public transport pass.
Getting there was a political fight. In 2005 the Federal Constitutional Court struck down a federal law banning tuition fees, ruling that education belongs to the states. Seven states then brought in fees of €500 per semester in 2006 and 2007. After large student protests and a petition of 70,000 signatures, Hesse was the first to drop them, before its 2008 election, and other states followed. Bavaria in 2013 and Lower Saxony in 2014 were the last to abolish general fees.
There are exceptions. Since autumn 2017, Baden-Württemberg has charged students from outside the EU/EEA €1,500 per semester, and anyone studying for a second degree there €650. Six states still charge “long-time students” who take much longer than the standard period between €500 and €900 per semester. Some non-consecutive master’s programmes, such as MBAs, charge fees too. To help with living costs, the federal BAföG scheme pays eligible students up to €735 a month. About half of that is a grant, and repayment of the loan part is capped at €10,000. There is more on the economy behind this system in our guide to Germany’s economy.
Austria shows how a country can move back and forth. Its universities were free until 2001, when fees of €366 per term were introduced for Austrians and about €700 for others. In 2008 the government dropped the fee for EU/EEA students who finish within the minimum time, which is why Austria is back in the top five.
Costa Rica and Romania, the unexpected names in the top 10
Costa Rica is the only country outside Europe in the top 10. At 87.9%, its government share is almost equal to Iceland’s, which puts it well ahead of other Latin American countries in the OECD data. Mexico’s government share was 58.9% in 2022, Chile’s 41.4% in 2023 and Peru’s 39.0% in 2022. Chile shows that the measure can shift. After student protests in 2011–13, a law passed in 2018 (the gratuidad) made study free at participating institutions for students from the poorest 60% of households, as of 2019. For more on the Central American country at the top of this group, see our Costa Rica country guide.
Romania, in seventh place (82.8%), is surprising in a different way. Its private share is small, at 7.9%, but it gets 9.3% of university funding from international sources, the fifth-highest share in the dataset after Latvia, Portugal, Greece and Estonia. Slovakia (82.3%) and Belgium (82.2%) close the top 10. In both, most of the money is public and the remaining private share is around 14–15%.
Where students pay most: the United Kingdom, Japan and Australia
The other end of the ranking shows what the measure captures. In the United Kingdom only 21.8% of spending on tertiary institutions came from government in 2023, and 75.5% came from private sources, the lowest government share of any reporting country. That was not always so. Local authorities used to cover fees, and the Education Act 1962 made this compulsory. Fees returned under the Teaching and Higher Education Act 1998, capped at first at £1,000 a year and later raised to £9,000 in most of the UK. Scotland went the other way after devolution in 1999: university tuition is free there for Scottish students.
Japan (35.7%) and Australia (34.0%) also rely heavily on private money, and so does the United States, where the government share was 38.4% in 2022. Individual US states have made exceptions. In March 2022 New Mexico waived tuition for in-state students at its public and tribal colleges, provided they take at least six credit hours and keep a 2.5 GPA. The idea is old in America. The Free Academy of the City of New York, now the City College of New York, opened in 1847 to give the city’s poor and immigrants a free higher education.
Free degrees outside the OECD: Argentina, Sri Lanka and Guyana
Some of the most generous systems are missing from the OECD data because those countries do not report to it. Argentina has made study at every state university free since 1949, and this includes international students. In Sri Lanka, C. W. W. Kannangara brought in free education from kindergarten to undergraduate level in the 1940s. However, undergraduate places are so limited that only about 10% of qualified applicants get one. Guyana offers free education at every level, including the University of Guyana, to its citizens. Mauritius also makes study free from pre-primary to tertiary level and has given students free transport since July 2005.
Others have added free university more recently. The Philippines passed a law for free tuition at public tertiary institutions in 2017. Trinidad and Tobago pays for undergraduate study for citizens at accredited institutions through its Government Assisted Tuition Expenses (GATE) programme. Iran’s leading governmental universities charge nothing to students who score highly in a competitive entrance exam, but graduates must then work for the state for as many years as they studied. If you are planning to study abroad rather than comparing national systems, our country-by-country list of free and nearly free university tuition sets out who pays what, region by region.