Università della Svizzera italiana Admission 2027

Admission at a glance

Universita della Svizzera italiana (USI) is Switzerland's Italian-speaking public university, with its main campus in Lugano, and it is the youngest of the twelve universities researched for this file, founded in 1996. USI charges a flat semester fee of CHF 4,000 to any student who was not resident in Switzerland or Liechtenstein at the time of their final secondary school exam (Maturita); students who were resident pay CHF 2,000, making USI's non-resident rate the highest flat tuition among the Swiss universities researched here. Holders of a bachelor's degree from USI are admitted unconditionally to a master's programme in the same subject area; admission to a programme in a different subject can require levelling coursework, assessed by the relevant faculty.

USI teaches a wide range of its bachelor's and master's programmes in English alongside Italian, particularly in communication, economics, informatics and its hospitality-linked management programmes, and its language-requirement pages, published individually for programmes including International Tourism, Corporate Communication, Management, Digital Fashion Communication, Marketing and Transformative Economy and Finance, consistently set the same CEFR B2+ level for an applicant whose previous degree was not taught in English, equal to IELTS 6.5 or TOEFL iBT 85; TOEIC and Cambridge English certificates are also accepted, and an applicant whose prior degree was taught entirely in English is commonly exempt. A master's application carries a CHF 100 registration fee, non-refundable but deducted from the first semester's tuition if the applicant enrols. USI's own website returned an access-denied response to every direct page fetch attempted this session, so the admission process and deadline details here rely on search-indexed extracts of USI's own pages rather than direct verification of the live page text.

Requirements

Bachelor

• A secondary school leaving certificate USI recognises as granting access to higher education.
• Italian or English proficiency depending on the programme; USI's B2+ (IELTS 6.5 / TOEFL iBT 85) standard applies to English-taught programmes for applicants whose prior education was not in English.
• Application by the published deadline; USI's own pages describe an around 30 April deadline for non-EU/EFTA candidates for autumn entry.

Master

• A bachelor's degree; holders of a USI bachelor's in the same subject area are admitted unconditionally, while a degree in a different subject can require levelling coursework the faculty sets.
• For a programme taught in English: CEFR B2+ (IELTS 6.5 or TOEFL iBT 85), waived for a prior degree taught entirely in English.
• A CHF 100 registration fee at the time of application, non-refundable but deducted from the first semester's tuition if enrolled.

Full requirements and documents