When prospective students ask me about the cost of living at HEC Paris, they usually want a realistic number, not a marketing pamphlet figure. So I went back through my own spending from my first year on campus and built a category-by-category budget that reflects what I actually spent. The numbers below skew slightly high so you are pleasantly surprised rather than caught short. If you are budgeting for HEC, treat these as upper bounds, not aspirations.
Here is the breakdown.
Rent
Your biggest single expense will be rent. A studio in the on-campus student residence costs around 600 euros a month. As a student, you can claim CAF, the French government rental subsidy that covers up to 30 percent of your rent.
CAF processing takes time. It can take two or more months before the first payment lands. Do not depend on it for cash flow in your first months. For budgeting purposes, I use 400 euros a month as the net rent figure after CAF.
Food and groceries
The student restaurant, the RU, charges around 5 euros a meal. If you ate every lunch and dinner there, you would spend 200 to 250 a month on the RU alone.
Most students mix RU meals with cooking. During my gap year I cooked all my meals at home and spent about 200 a month on groceries. If you balance cooking, eating at the RU a few times a week, and grabbing coffee or snacks from the vending machine, 300 euros a month is a safe estimate.
Eating out
A meal at a Paris restaurant runs 12 to 15 euros without drinks, more if you add wine or dessert. Two meals out a week, mostly on weekends, comes to about 120 a month.
Partying and going out
A Party of the Week entry costs 15 euros. A beer at the campus bar is around 2. Most parties on campus are student-organised at residences or by the lake, so they often run as bring-your-own.
If you go out in Paris, expect 30 to 40 euros per night including transport, food, and drinks. For my own budget I take 20 to 40 a month assuming most parties happen on campus.
Transport
Students under 27 qualify for the Navigo or Imagine R card. Without it, each one-way trip from campus to Paris costs close to 5 euros, plus 1.90 per metro trip. With a Navigo, you pay about 350 euros for the entire academic year and travel unlimited. That works out to 30 a month.
On top of the Navigo, you will spend on student-run bus shuttles and occasional shared Ubers. Total transport budget: 40 to 50 a month.
Phone plan
Services like Red by SFR offer plans for 10 to 15 euros a month including 60GB of data, EU roaming, and unlimited calls and texts. Budget 10 a month.
A realistic monthly total
| Category | Monthly cost |
|---|---|
| Rent after CAF | EUR 400 |
| Food and groceries | EUR 300 |
| Eating out | EUR 120 |
| Partying and going out | EUR 30 |
| Transport (Navigo plus extras) | EUR 50 |
| Phone | EUR 10 |
| Buffer for unexpected costs | EUR 90 |
| Total | EUR 1,000 |
A monthly budget of one thousand euros covers a comfortable student life on campus. You can do it for less with careful tracking and consistent cooking. You can also spend significantly more if you eat out frequently, travel, or shop a lot.
Part-time jobs
A common question is whether you can offset costs with part-time work. The honest answer is no.
HEC is academically demanding. Internship hunting is itself a part-time job. The campus is remote with very few on-campus jobs. TA and RA positions exist but are rare. Adding a part-time job risks pulling you away from the things that actually drive your post-graduation outcomes. If you need funding, scholarships and student loans are the realistic paths. I have written about HEC Paris scholarships separately.
One-time setup costs
When you first arrive there is a wave of one-time spending that does not show up in any monthly budget.
- IKEA basics for your room: 200 to 300 euros
- HEC Alumni Network membership: around 200 euros
- Winter clothes if you arrive from a warm climate: 300 to 400 euros
- Welcome Week events and orientation activities
- Initial groceries and per-ticket transport before your Navigo arrives
I budget 1,000 euros as an upper bound for this initial setup phase. Treat it as a separate line from your monthly running costs.
How this compares to a three-year total
This monthly budget covers your time on campus. The actual three-year cost of HEC also includes tuition, the gap year, flights, and travel during the program. I broke down my full three-year HEC Paris spend separately and the total came to around 60,000 euros.
For the broader value side, I covered HEC Paris ROI. For lifestyle context once you move into the city after M2, living in Paris pros and cons is useful.
How to actually budget
The mistake I see new students make is converting every individual euro back to their home currency. That mental conversion is exhausting.
The better approach is bottom-up. Set a monthly category budget. Convert the total budget to your home currency once. Then evaluate each spend as a fraction of that monthly budget rather than against your home currency. The question is no longer “is this expensive in rupees” but “do I have budget for this in my food category.” That framing made HEC feel manageable for me.