This Moroccan Works All Summer to Pay for His Studies in France: Even 2,000 Euros Are No Longer Enough
At 18, Yassine is giving up returning to Morocco this summer. He is working at a warehouse in Toulouse to save around 2,000 euros. An amount that has become insufficient in the face of the tightening financial conditions imposed on foreign students in France.
Working as a handler at a heavy-truck warehouse, the young Moroccan lifts packages weighing up to 50 kilos for 60 euros a day. He arrived in France in 2025 and enrolled in an integrated preparatory class at an engineering school. He hopes to save around 2,000 euros by working during the two summer months, he told Le Monde.
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“I’m working all summer instead of returning to Morocco to see my parents,” he explains. But tuition fees for non-European students can now reach 2,895 euros for a bachelor’s degree and 3,941 euros for a master’s degree, compared with 178 and 254 euros for French and European students.
Moroccans are the most affected: more than 42,000 were enrolled in French higher education in 2024-2025, making Morocco the leading country of origin for foreign students in France.
Exemptions will fall sharply
Until now, universities had largely offset these fees through exemptions. In 2024-2025, 90% of the 111,500 students concerned still benefited from them, either fully or partially. A decree published on May 19 now provides for reducing this proportion to 30% in 2026, 25% in 2027 and 20% in 2028.
Amina Bentayeb, a Moroccan from Fès admitted to Aix-Marseille Université, thought she would benefit from a 75% exemption. She learned in July that she would ultimately have to pay the full amount. “I had built my entire plan around this exemption. Today, I wonder whether I’ll be able to continue,” she says.
Yassine still benefits from a partial exemption thanks to his results and pays around 1,200 euros a year. But his budget is also affected by the abolition of housing assistance for certain foreign students. In Lyon, Ibrahim, a 19-year-old Moroccan, has just lost 200 euros a month in housing assistance, while his rent amounts to 600 euros excluding charges.
Some are therefore beginning to look elsewhere. Yassine is considering Germany, where his brother lives and where he believes studies are less costly. Ibrahim also observes that, among those around him, “in Morocco, people are beginning to turn away from France.”
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For now, Moroccan applications for 2026-2027 are still up 8%, with an admission rate of 41%. But they were submitted before the announcement of the new measures. Their true impact on France’s appeal among Moroccan students therefore remains to be assessed.
