A USD-for-degree strategy: Egypt is counting on foreign students as a source of hard currency. “Study in Egypt,” the ministry’s admissions platform, helped bring in 198k foreign students in 2025 — 138k of them enrolled in higher education, the ministry says. Two gaps could undercut that push: what universities charge and who they let in.

The 138k students enrolled in higher education span 119 nationalities across 28 public universities, 34 private universities, and 22 national universities.

Cairo University alone accounted for a quarter of that total, hosting more than 33k foreign students from over 110 countries, more than any other institution in Egypt. Alexandria follows at about 17k, a government official told us earlier. Ain Shams and Mansoura rank among the most recognized abroad too, the official adds.

The investment and higher education ministries ran their first promotional mission in Nigeria, targeting 30 new enrollments. It landed 175, with 15-20 more in the pipeline, General Authority for International Exhibitions and Conferences Chairman Alaa El Bially previously told us.

More missions are planned for new markets, and the pitch also leans on education fairs across Arab and European countries, alongside individual private universities marketing their own programs abroad.

Medicine leads, and AI is climbing: Medical colleges draw the largest share of foreign enrollment, followed by engineering, according to the ministry statement. Humanities and law trail and skew toward non-Arabic speakers, the official says. AI and computer science programs are gaining ground even as the traditional leaders hold their place, the same source added, and the ministry has also folded technology colleges and universities into “Study in Egypt,” expanding its focus to push newer specialties.

The target remains ambitious: Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly had called on the Higher Education Ministry to grow foreign enrollment by 150%, a target the ministry has now adopted, per spokesman Adel Abdel Ghaffar.

“The directive is currently being translated into an implementation framework,” the government official tells us, with that growth meant to lift foreign students to around 6% of total university enrollment by 2030 — the ministry’s way of measuring whether the 150% target has actually been hit.

The push is expected to translate into steady foreign-currency revenue. “The ministry had previously set a target of USD 2 bn from educational tourism; that figure is currently under review,” they say.

Tuition fees vary widely by university: The “Study in Egypt” platform lists bachelor’s tuition at USD 3.5k-8k, though the government official breaks the range down further by specialty and university type: USD 6k-8k for medicine at public universities, dropping to USD 5k-8k for other practical majors, and around USD 3.5k for humanities tracks. Private universities charge USD 10k-12k for medicine and USD 7k-10k for engineering, while international branch campuses can run as high as USD 20k for medicine.

Public schools play a volume game, pursuing sustained demand rather than premium service, and therefore charge less, Cairo and Alexandria universities’ staff members tell us. Private universities enroll far fewer foreign students but often throw in cultural-integration programs that push tuition fees up.

Either way, prices have climbed fast: medical tuition at public universities has roughly doubled or tripled from the USD 2k-4k a foreign student paid just a few years ago.

Egypt’s strongest global rankings sit in public universities: Cairo University placed 164th worldwide in medicine and 136th in computer science in the 2026 QS World University Rankings by Subject, and six Egyptian public universities made the Shanghai Ranking’s global top 1k this year.

The threshold for admission is lower in Egypt for some foreign students compared to their home countries. Jordan won’t recognize a medical or dental degree earned abroad unless the student scored at least 90% on their final high school exams back home, a threshold it raised from 85% just two years ago. Palestine holds its own students to the same standard for medicine, dropping only slightly to 85% for dentistry, under a July 2026 decision. Iraq is stricter still, requiring 95% for medicine, 90% for pharmacy and dentistry, per a July 2026 ministry announcement. Egypt asks for 70-75% from its foreign applicants, and knocks off up to half the price for students from Sudan, Palestine, and Syria.

Egyptian students face a higher bar than international students: Higher Education Minister Abdel Aziz Konsowa announced a 94.06% minimum for medicine for citizens applying through the domestic system in 2026/27, up from 93.1% the year before — a bar Egypt doesn’t hold foreign applicants to.

Egypt is planning to cut domestic medical-school admissions, but not to make room for foreigners, Badr University in Assiut President Mostafa Kamal previously told EnterpriseAM. The cut relates to job availability for doctors and the state’s hiring budget for new physicians, not a swap with foreign enrollment, he said.

Egyptian Medical Syndicate Head Osama Abdel Hay discussed the growing number of graduates admitted with GPAs as low as 50% or from newly licensed private and foreign medical colleges without dedicated teaching hospitals, in an interview on MBC Masr’s Al Hekaya (watch, runtime: 11:04). Syndicate registration follows quality standards set by law, Abdel Hay said, and graduates from institutions that don’t meet clinical-training or accreditation benchmarks won’t be automatically licensed, regardless of holding a degree.

Quality has to move before volume does: Helwan University Professor Wael Kamel backs the push to grow foreign enrollment and USD revenue but says “expansion has to move in step with preserving quality and the reputation of Egyptian universities.”

Calls for proper reform are spreading across the country: Egypt needs “to raise its admissions floor and tighten requirements around attendance, training, and practical work for foreign students, especially in medicine, alongside fixing faculty pay to match rising enrollment,” Kamel tells EnterpriseAM.

“If the goal is national income from education exports, the wager should be on growing numbers while holding quality steady, not just raising prices on a limited pool,” he says.

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