Marsa Alam and Shalateen Students Will Pay No Fees at Hurghada University This Year, Dorms and Meals Included
Hurghada University's council has exempted students from Halayeb, Shalateen, Abu Ramad and Marsa Alam, and students with disabilities, from tuition and residence fees for 2026/2027. The same meeting approved a hospitality double degree with France's Vatel school.
1 October 2026
Students from Halayeb, Shalateen, Abu Ramad and Marsa Alam will pay no tuition fees and no residence fees at Hurghada University in the 2026/2027 academic year, after a decision by the university council reported by Al-Masry Al-Youm and Al-Ahram Gate.
The council took the decision at its monthly meeting, chaired by the university president, Prof. Mahfouz Abu El-Fadl. According to Al-Masry Al-Youm, the exemption covers both tuition and the fees for the university's halls of residence, including accommodation and meals, and is framed as support for students from the governorate's border areas. The council separately exempted students with disabilities from tuition fees for the same academic year.
A French hospitality degree, taught in Hurghada
The same meeting approved the start of teaching on bachelor's and professional master's programmes in hospitality management, run as a double degree with the Vatel hotel and tourism business school in France. Al-Masry Al-Youm says the programmes follow the ministerial decree authorising them.
Three further decisions were taken at the meeting:
- a cooperation protocol with Qena University, represented by its Faculty of Mass Communication, to award postgraduate degrees at Hurghada University's own media faculty
- a cooperation protocol with Menoufia University for a professional doctorate in accounting
- the award of master's degrees to a number of researchers who had completed the required academic procedures
The reports do not say how many students the exemptions will cover, what they will cost the university, how students apply or prove eligibility, or when the hospitality programmes begin taking applications.
For families in the far south of the Red Sea Governorate, a free place with accommodation and meals removes the single largest cost of sending a school-leaver to Hurghada. For the coast's hotels, a Vatel-badged hospitality qualification taught in Hurghada is a route into the industry that until now meant studying somewhere else.