The Council of State of Greece, Greece’s highest administrative court, has removed the final constitutional hurdle for the establishment and operation of private universities in Greece, upholding Law 5094/2024 by a majority ruling.
During closed-door sessions on 2 and 13 June 2025, the court decided that the establishment and operation of private universities are constitutional in Greece provided that academic freedom is protected and that high educational standards are upheld.
Twelve European universities, eleven British and one French, aim to open branches in October 2025; a thirteenth, the University of Nicosia, is slated for 2026-27. The British and French universities are already operating in Greece albeit through collaborations with private Greek colleges.
Collectively, the new universities have applied to open 39 different departments that offer 162 undergraduate programs, and plan to enroll 6,280 Greek students in their first year of operation.
The new university licenses are now being scrutinized by the Hellenic Authority for Higher Education (HAHE), which will also carry out recurring audits once the campuses are operating.
According to Greek media reports, the HAHE is now pressuring these universities to extend their three-year undergraduate programs to four-year ones.
The ruling is a landmark shift for Greek higher education, which has been historically limited to allow only state-run universities, under Article 16 of the Greek Constitution.
Hellenic Minister of Economy and Finance Kyriakos Pierrakakis, who drafted the new law as Minister of Education in 2024, expressed his satisfaction over the court’s decision.
“As of today, Greece definitively ceases to be an exception to a global educational norm,” said Pierrakakis, adding that “the coexistence of public universities with non-state, non-profit universities strengthens academic competitiveness and attracts investment in research, innovation and international cooperation.”
Critics of the decision argue that the establishment of private universities in Greece risks creating a two-tier higher-education landscape that only benefits the affluent who can afford to pay tuition.
Another source of concern within Greek society is the suspicion that private universities in Greece would sacrifice education quality for profit, or even divert government funds away from their public counterparts which are already under pressure from budget cuts.
