Top 10 Universities in Italy 2027-28: QS Rankings, Courses and Fees

QS published its World University Rankings 2027, and it moved several Italian universities up or down from where they sat last year. Below is the current top 10 universities in Italy list, in strict QS 2027 order, with popular courses and tuition converted to INR so you’re working with real numbers, not a rough estimate.

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What you need to note: Nine of these ten universities use Italy's ISEE-based fee system, meaning that your exact tuition is based on your family's declared income rather than a flat international rate. These top 10 public universities in Italy overlap (nine out of ten), which is one reason this ranking works out more affordably than similar lists for the UK or the US. Cattolica is private and priced separately.

Here's what each university is known for, what it takes to get in, and what funding support is available. If you're comparing more than one from this top 10 universities in Italy list, these details are what actually differ, not just the QS ranks.

Founded in 1863 and located in Milan, Italy's fashion and business hub, PoliMi is the country's top-ranked university this year and the one most Indian applicants researching the top 10 engineering universities in Italy shortlist first. Its alumni list includes Nobel laureate chemist Giulio Natta, and its close ties to Milan's design and manufacturing industry give graduates a real edge in Architecture and Design placements.

• Best for: Engineering, Architecture, and Design applicants who want the strongest employer reputation in Italy.
• Scholarships: DSU Lombardia, the regional right-to-study scholarship, covers tuition and a living stipend for eligible students.

Read our DSU Scholarship in Italy guide for eligibility.

Founded in 1303 by Pope Boniface VIII, Sapienza is Europe's largest university by enrollment, with over 115,000 students across faculties ranging from Physics to Medicine. Several Italian presidents and Nobel laureates studied here.

• Best for: Students wanting the widest range of English-taught postgraduate options at a large public university.
• Scholarships: Rome's regional scholarship body, LazioDiSCo, covers tuition and stipend for eligible income brackets.

Founded in 1088, Bologna is the oldest university in the world and the birthplace of the modern university system. Alumni and former lecturers include Copernicus and Marconi, and it remains internationally recognized for Law and Humanities while expanding into Data Science.

• Best for: Law, Humanities, and Data Science applicants who want the prestige of Italy's oldest and most recognized name.
• Scholarships: Emilia-Romagna's regional body, ER.GO, funds tuition waivers and stipends for qualifying students.

Founded in 1222, Padua is where Galileo Galilei taught for 18 years and where the world's first permanent anatomical theatre was built in 1594. It's part of the Coimbra Group of leading European research universities.

• Best for: Medicine, Psychology, and Engineering applicants who want a research-heavy, internationally networked university.
• Scholarships: Veneto's regional body, ESU di Padova, offers tuition and accommodation support.

Founded in 1859 as a School for Engineers, Politecnico di Torino is Italy's oldest technical university and, alongside PoliMi, one of the two names that anchor most rankings of the top 10 engineering universities in Italy. Its long-standing relationship with Fiat and Turin's automotive industry gives students genuine access to industrial research most universities can't offer.

• Best for: Engineering applicants specifically interested in automotive, energy, or industrial design work.
• Scholarships: Piedmont's regional body, EDISU Piemonte, covers tuition and stipends based on income.

Founded in 1924 and often called "La Statale" to distinguish it from PoliMi and Bocconi, this research-heavy public university runs more than 130 programs, complete with three historic botanical gardens still used for teaching. It's home to one of Italy's most competitive English-taught Medicine programs.

• Best for: Medicine applicants targeting one of Italy's most competitive English-taught MD programs, plus Law and Economics.
• Scholarships: Also covered by DSU Lombardia (see Politecnico di Milano above), alongside university-specific merit awards.

Founded in 1343, Pisa is where Galileo Galilei studied before he ever taught elsewhere, and it later became the first Italian university to launch a dedicated Computer Science degree. It shares its city and research facilities with the elite Scuola Normale Superiore and Sant'Anna School.

• Best for: Computer Science, Physics, and Mathematics applicants who want a smaller, research-intensive campus.
• Scholarships: Tuscany's regional body, DSU Toscana, provides tuition waivers and stipends.

Founded in 1982, Tor Vergata is one of Italy's youngest major universities and also the fastest-improving of the country's established institutions over the past decade. It has built genuine corporate placement pipelines with firms like Deloitte, PwC, and SAP.

• Best for: Economics and Medicine applicants who want strong corporate placement ties in Rome.
• Scholarships: Also covered by LazioDiSCo (see Sapienza above), Rome's regional scholarship body.

Founded in 1921, Cattolica is the largest private, non-state university in Europe, with five campuses across Milan, Brescia, Piacenza, Cremona, and Rome. Its Rome campus, attached to the Gemelli hospital, runs one of the country's most respected Medicine programs.

• Best for: Economics, Psychology, and Medicine applicants who prefer a smaller, private university with a defined scholarship path.
• Scholarships: Its UCSC International Scholarship reduces the full tuition fee to around €5,900 a year for eligible international applicants.

Founded in 1224 by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, this is one of the oldest state-funded universities in the world, with alumni ranging from Thomas Aquinas to astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti. It's grown into one of Europe's largest universities by enrollment.

• Best for: Engineering and Medicine applicants who want one of Europe's oldest research faculties at public ISEE fees.
• Scholarships: Its own international scholarship program, run with the Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, awards roughly €11,060 over two years to eligible international students, on top of Campania's regional DSU support.

My insight: Students often pick a university on QS rank alone and discover the "best for" mismatch only after applying. A design applicant chasing PoliMi's overall rank while ignoring Politecnico di Torino's stronger automotive-design pipeline is a common example. Match the "Best for" to your course before matching the rank.

The paperwork is largely the same across all ten, whether you're aiming for Bologna or Tor Vergata. Here's what to have ready before you start.

My insight: The document most underestimated isn't the hardest one; it's the Declaration of Value or CIMEA statement. Students assume attested transcripts are enough, then find weeks later that a specific faculty also wants a separate comparability statement before it will process the application.

Only if you're applying to an English-taught Medicine and Surgery program. Among the top 10 universities in Italy on this list, that's Sapienza, Bologna, Padua, Milan, Tor Vergata, and Naples Federico II. Politecnico di Milano, Politecnico di Torino, and Pisa don't run an English-medium medicine degree, so the IMAT doesn't apply there, and Cattolica uses its private entrance test rather than the public IMAT.

If Medicine isn't your target course, you can skip this entirely and move straight to the document checklist above.

To get a complete breakdown of the exam itself, check out our IMAT exam guide and the current IMAT exam dates for 2026.

Italy runs most of its academic year around one main intake: September to October, when the majority of bachelor's and master's programmes across this top 10 begin, and when Universitaly pre-enrolment activity peaks.

A handful of universities offer a smaller spring intake for select courses, but if you're applying from India, you're almost certainly working toward the September cycle, so that's what this calendar is built around.

If you're a final-year BTech student targeting a September 2026 master's intake

Start Universitaly pre-enrollment the moment you have a provisional degree certificate, since HRD attestation queues are the biggest bottleneck for Indian applicants.

If you're set on an IMAT-based Medicine seat

Register early and treat the exam as a separate project from your general applications, since it has its own registration window and score thresholds that vary by university.

If your family's budget sits close to the ISEE tuition floor

Get any education loan fully disbursed before applying for scholarships, since regional DSU bodies ask for proof of funds alongside the scholarship application, not instead of it.

If you're deciding between a public university and Cattolica

Run the actual numbers first. Cattolica's higher sticker price can shrink significantly with its International Scholarship, sometimes closing the gap with a public university's upper ISEE bracket.

My insight: The applicants who move fastest are rarely the ones with the strongest scores. They're the ones who start HRD attestation and Universitaly pre-enrollment in parallel instead of one after the other.

• Struggling with HRD attestation delays

Start the process the day you have any provisional certificate in hand. It's the single biggest cause of missed intake deadlines for Indian applicants.

• Confused about TOLC vs IMAT vs no exam at all across this top 10 universities in Italy list

Check the specific course page on the university's own site rather than assuming one rule applies across the whole institution, since it genuinely varies by faculty.

• Struggling to compare ISEE-based fees across universities

Contact the university's international office directly with your family's income details rather than guessing from published ranges, since the final number is calculated individually.

• The visa timeline feels too tight after your offer letter arrives

Read up on the Italy student visa process as soon as you apply to universities, not after you're admitted, so document collection overlaps with your application window.

1. QS 2027 is the most current ranking available for the top 10 universities in Italy. If a list you're reading elsewhere doesn't mention QS 2027 by name, it's likely working from last year's data.
2. Nine of these ten are public and ISEE-based, so your actual tuition depends on your family's income, not a fixed international fee, which makes this one of the more affordable serious rankings in Europe.
3. The entrance exam question has one clear answer: IMAT only matters if you're applying for English-taught Medicine. Everything else on this list runs on transcripts, English proficiency, and university-specific requirements.

Verified by: LeapScholar's Italy counseling team, who work with Indian students on university shortlisting and applications across Italy's public and private institutions every intake.

Have questions about which of these universities fits your profile? Book a free session with a LeapScholar counselor.