The Ministry of Higher Education does not have statistics on the number of its graduates who, after a bachelor’s degree + 3, leave France to take a master’s degree at a foreign university. A relatively old figure allows us to outline this reality: according to the 2025 INJEP study, 8% of graduates in 2017 had obtained a foreign diploma or double diploma.
But these percentages combine two very different experiences: a double degree, like an Erasmus semester, allows you to remain enrolled at your French institution, while choosing a master’s degree abroad means completely abandoning your ties to French higher education.
“There is no coordination between agencies, we have to do everything ourselves”
When Victor, 29, decided to take his master’s degree abroad, he already had little experience studying outside France, as he had previously completed an Erasmus in Budapest. For his bac+5, he aimed further afield and chose to cross the Atlantic, heading to the University of Montreal. An experience that did not start under the best of circumstances.
“Gathering application files was a huge hassle!”, recalls the young man: “Each government, in France and in the host country, had its own way of working, there was no coordination between institutions, no correspondence between class systems, we had to do everything ourselves.” Including a visa application, which involves, in Canada, proving to immigration services that you have at least $15,000 in your account.
Admitted to Montreal before obtaining a student visa, he will therefore begin his master’s degree in international affairs there on a simple tourist visa. Added to the administrative complications are housing difficulties, Victor being cheated by a slumlord, and the discovery of Quebec culture, which is less open than he had imagined. Although he admits to having a difficult first year, he still has positive memories of the experience. “I really liked the very easy interaction with the teachers, for me who was very shy, it was amazing, I returned to France transformed.”
Language barrier
Sometimes it’s the language that gets in the way. “My English is bad, but I always dreamed of going,” said Fatoumata, 30 and now an employee at a British company specializing in quality control. He measures the distance traveled since his ST2S baccalaureate: “After a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Paris-Saclay, I wanted to stay there to take a master’s degree in formulation on a work-study basis, but I didn’t find a company. I was disappointed, and that’s when the idea arose to study abroad. »
Her family was very surprised because Fatoumata had never set foot outside France. “The day before my departure, when I was packing my bags, my mother said to me: ‘but are you really leaving?’”, recalled the woman who is now bilingual. To be accepted at a foreign university, students must take TOEFL, ILTS, or other standardized tests.
The young woman then began spending a year in Birmingham, at a private training institute to study Shakespeare’s language. “Next door to school I got a small job as an order collector to pay my bills, with a boss who had such a strong Scottish accent I couldn’t understand anything he said!”, he laughs. At the same time, he was preparing his application to enter a master’s degree in chemistry and the formulation of his dream, namely the University of Greenwich.
Training: not recognized
Another obligatory formality: diplomas and transcripts were translated by a translation agency, which he also handled there. To complete her paperwork, she contacted her undergraduate tutor to get a letter of recommendation, which is essential at many foreign universities. A month later, Fatoumata was relieved to find herself accepted at Greenwich. He had earned his master’s degree and followed up with a one-year master of science degree at Durham University.
A situation that Emilia, who had to leave the Netherlands and then Slovenia, would certainly appreciate. However, for the young French-Japanese, things did not go according to plan. In his 4th year, he arrived in the Netherlands to obtain a master’s degree in environmental design.
In contrast to Victor, if the university helped him find accommodation and he was quite confident after his first expatriation to Slovenia via Erasmus, he quickly became disillusioned: “Autumn came, the days got shorter, I didn’t manage to build relationships with the other students of my master’s degree, all the strangers and the solitary ones, I felt very isolated”. Moreover, the master’s degree Emilia integrated into a more artistic dimension than what she understood while studying from France: “I struggled to understand the expectations of the teachers.”
The young girl finally left the Netherlands at Christmas, with plans to return to Slovenia to take her master’s degree – and meet her boyfriend there. To finish his year, he took a semester of European studies at the University of Ljubljana, then pre-registered for a master’s degree in the same field.
The problem: the university didn’t recognize his three years of post-baccalaureate studies, which he completed at the CY design school. Dropping out of a master’s degree abroad, Emilia was brought back at the last minute in her 4th year at Cergy. But there is no question for him to limit foreigners as he plans to complete his bac+5 degree and return to Slovenia to take a doctorate. Fatoumata, for her part, gets caught up in the non-returning Frenchman’s game and contracts the disease of expatriation. “This experience gave me confidence, I feel ready to go back to another country in a few years,” he said from the position he obtained a year ago in New Castle.
