Madrid is becoming an increasingly attractive destination for university students from all over the world. The number of students coming from beyond our borders is increasing and currently exceeds those who choose Catalonia by several thousand. And centers … Postgraduate studies in our region have a special appeal among students from America, who have given the “sorpaso” to the Europeans in the last six years and have already obtained grades up to ten points higher.
It’s a cliché to say that Madrid is trendy. Perception is realized in many fields, education is one of them. Internationalization statistics issued by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities reflect this gradual increase in student access to Madrid universities. The fundamental change has been the appeal these spaces have shown among students from America, whose numbers have increased dramatically, by now.
The main countries that emit this type of population are France, Italy, China, the United States, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Romania, Ecuador, Germany, Chile, Venezuela and Portugal. Those coming from the EU total 19,511; The number of arrivals from Latin America is 18,678, and they are joined by 4,284 others arriving from the United States and 263 from Canada. But in recent years there has been a clear change in trend: students from neighboring European countries are practically the same, while the number of students coming from the new continent is gradually increasing.
In the academic year 2023-24, according to the aforementioned statistics, 54,647 students from other countries were registered in all Madrid universities. Of them, 15,928 come through mobility programmes, such as Erasmus, but the rest are regular registrations.
The development of these numbers is interesting: if in the 2014-2015 academic year there were 22,348 people enrolled in higher education centers in the region, now the number is more than double that number. If that year it was 37.5% from the European Union, 33.8% from Latin America and the Caribbean, and 1% from the United States and Canada, the data has now taken a turn: 42.6% now comes from Latin America, while the proportion of European countries remains 33% of the total. Those in the United States also doubled and reached nearly 8 percent.
There are also young people attending universities in the area who come from very far away; In the reference year 2023-24, there were 56 from Pakistan; 112 from Taiwan; 270 from the Republic of Korea; 43 from Iran; And 4607 from China. In total, those from Asia and Oceania represent 15 percent.
Price reduction
When they look for an explanation for Madrid’s surprising success in attracting university students from other countries, those responsible for the Ministry of Education remember that they worked hard to find out. Accurately attacking one of the most sensitive factors: the pocket. The regional government announced in October 2023 that it would amend the General Prices Decree so that university students from Latin American countries pay the same university fees as Spaniards or students from European Union countries. This idea is about to be realized in this session. In fact, Education confirms that it will be implemented this year, retroactively, immediately after the decree is issued.
Reducing their university fees is undoubtedly a major incentive upon arrival, given that credit prices have until now been much higher for foreigners than for nationals. For Spaniards or those coming from the European Union, the cost is approximately 21 euros per credit for first registration at public universities.
However, those from outside this area paid up to six times as much. As of the amendment of the Price Decree, students from Latin American countries who attend public universities in Madrid will pay the same as a student from here, which undoubtedly represents a significant saving for them in this regard.
The CC Union also recently confirmed the increasing trend of students from America arriving at Madrid universities. OO., which in a report issued in February 2025 analyzed the university system in the region and concluded that in the past decade the number of university students in Madrid has increased by approximately 18 percent; But this number was ten points lower than the increase in the number of 20- to 25-year-olds residing in the community. This means that universities are becoming more crowded, but with young people from elsewhere.
Another figure from this same report confirms this: the proportion of university students with habitual residence in the Community of Madrid was 72.6 percent of all those enrolled in the 2015-2016 academic year, but in the 2022-23 academic year it decreased to 68.3 percent. If this occurs among those studying a degree, the disparity is even greater among those pursuing a master’s degree: here it rose from 48.8 percent of those registered with habitual residence in the Community of Madrid to 39.5 percent, in the same reference courses.
Our region has a higher weight than other regions in terms of population aged 25-34 with higher education; The same sources concluded that this was due to attracting students from other autonomous communities or other countries. In that 2022-23 academic year, for example, some 80,736 university students had their usual place of residence outside the Madrid region, representing 31.7 percent of the total.
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