HEC Paris Scholarships: Full Breakdown for MiM Applicants

The HEC Paris MiM is €58,900 in tuition across its two years, as published for the 2027/2028 M1 intake — €29,450 a year, plus a €170 non-refundable application fee, a €5,000 deposit deducted from the total, and an extra €2,000 for students from outside the EU and the Erasmus+ associated countries.¹ (That is up from the €57,700 the school published for 2026-27, and well up from the ~€49,000 an earlier version of this post quoted.) Scholarships can take a real bite out of it — but not by stacking HEC’s own awards, and this post used to get that wrong.

Here is the rule, in HEC’s own words: *“Can I pay 100% of my tuition fees by combining the scholarships? Unfortunately, it is not possible. HEC Paris Scholarships cannot be combined. Merit-based scholarships can go up to 15 000 euros maximum.”*² You hold one HEC award. What you can add to it is money from outside HEC — the school says so in the same answer: *“you can combine HEC Paris with external scholarships such as Charpak Scholarship (only for Indian applicants), The Eiffel Scholarship (only for Round 1 applicants), or any other external scholarship.”*²

So the real structure is one HEC award + external awards, not a pile of HEC awards. I got the HEC Foundation Excellence Scholarship of 4,000 euros; friends from my cohort added Eiffel or Charpak on top of theirs — that combination is the one that works, and it works because those two are French-government money, not HEC money.

This is the kind of post that nobody writes because the school’s website lists everything cleanly enough. But the website doesn’t tell you which scholarships you should bother applying for, when to apply, and how the strategy changes between the M1 and M2 years.

First, HEC’s own menu — because you are choosing one item from it

HEC publishes its scholarships in two families, and being clear which family an award belongs to is what tells you whether it needs a form.²

Merit-based — no application, no extra documents. Every admitted international applicant is considered automatically. The list is the HEC Foundation Excellence award, Women’s High Potential 30%, Volkswagen (this one does want an additional essay) and XTX Markets (Data Science & AI for Business and Data & Finance only, so not the MiM).²

Need-based — these do need an application, submitted on the same portal as your admission file, with deadlines matching the admissibility jury dates of the round you applied in. The list is Equal Opportunity (open to all international applicants), the Imagine Fellowship (students from war-torn countries), the CMA-CGM Excellence Fund for Lebanon and the Garzouzi Foundation Scholarship (MiM applicants from Lebanon).²

Two things follow that most applicants miss. First, the country-specific awards on that list are HEC awards, so they are inside the no-combining rule — a Lebanese MiM applicant chooses between Garzouzi and Foundation Excellence rather than adding one to the other. Second, all scholarship results are final and cannot be reconsidered, and they land by email within 72 hours of the admission results.² HEC also states that applicants have equal chances in every round — which is worth knowing, because it is the opposite of how most schools allocate.

The one exception to “no full rides” is the Imagine Fellowship, which HEC says is assessed case by case.²

The scholarships almost everyone can apply for

These two are the high-volume ones. Every international student should at minimum be in the pool for these.

HEC Foundation Excellence Scholarship

Funded by the HEC Foundation. Open to all international applicants with a non-French diploma at the bachelor’s or master’s level. You don’t apply. You’re automatically considered when you submit your admission application.

The award is a one-time tuition reduction, typically 3,000 to 7,000 euros, deducted directly from your fees. The selection criteria are academic record, GMAT or GRE score, strength of essays, and interview performance. Effectively, the stronger your overall application, the larger the award.

I received 4,000 euros from this scholarship when I joined. It’s not life-changing money but it’s a useful chunk and you don’t have to lift a finger to be considered.

A meaningful share of admitted internationals receive this scholarship. Don’t count on it, but expect a reasonable chance if your application is strong.

Eiffel Excellence Scholarship

This is the prestige award and worth real money. The French government funds it through the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs. (For the full mechanics across any French school — what it pays, who’s eligible, and why you can’t apply for it directly — see our dedicated Eiffel Excellence Scholarship guide.)

What you get:

• A monthly stipend of 1,200 euros at master’s level. (If you see 1,181 euros — including in an earlier version of this post — that is the superseded figure, not a contradiction; our Eiffel guide re-read the programme’s own regulations to settle it.)
• One international return ticket to Paris.
• French health insurance paid for the duration.

Total value over a full year is around 14,000 to 15,000 euros. Over two years, closer to 28,000 to 30,000 euros.

**The rule that decides whether you can be in this at all: HEC states the Eiffel is “only for Round 1 applicants.”**² You do not apply for the Eiffel yourself — the school nominates you, against Campus France’s calendar, which closes months before HEC’s later rounds do. So a candidate admitted in Round 2 or Round 3 has not merely reduced their odds of the biggest award on this page; they are outside it. That is the single most expensive scheduling fact in this post, and it is the reason the “apply early” advice below survives even though HEC says its own scholarship odds do not depend on the round.

Eligibility:

• Under 30 years old.
• Non-French nationality.
• Cannot have been awarded the Eiffel at the master’s level before, even at a different school.
• Critically, cannot have applied for the Eiffel and been rejected. This is the most important rule and the one most people miss.

That last rule changes the strategy completely. If you apply in the M1 year and get rejected, you can’t reapply in the M2 year. But if you don’t apply in M1, you can apply in M2 with a stronger profile (you’ll have completed gap year internships, ideally at brand-name companies) and have better odds.

The tradeoff: applying in M1 means two years of stipend if you win. Applying in M2 means one year of stipend, but a higher win rate.

In my cohort, more people got the Eiffel through the M2 application than through the M1 application, mostly because their profiles had matured. If you have a 760 GMAT and a strong bachelor’s, apply in M1. If your application has weaker spots, save it for M2.

Scholarships with specific eligibility

Women’s High Potential Scholarship

HEC Paris awards up to ten scholarships of up to 15,000 euros each to female candidates every year. All nationalities and programs are eligible. You’re automatically considered with your admission application.

Selection criteria: academic excellence and leadership potential, evaluated through transcripts, CV, and interview.

If you’re female and applying to HEC, this is essentially free upside. No extra essays, no separate application form.

Charpak Scholarship (India only)

The Charpak Scholarship is offered by the French Embassy in India through Campus France. Around 150 are awarded each year across French universities.

What you get:

• Monthly stipend of around 615 euros.
• Student visa fee covered.
• Health insurance covered.
• Tuition fee waiver of around 6,100 euros.
• Laptop allowance of around 700 euros.

Total value is in the 13,000 to 14,000 euros range for one year.

Eligibility is restricted to Indian nationals. You apply through Campus France India, not HEC directly. The application timeline is independent of the admission timeline, so check the deadlines as soon as you decide to apply.

The Charpak is a strong option for Indians who don’t get the Eiffel. The two are not stackable — you hold one or the other. But the Charpak is external money, so it does combine with an HEC award, and HEC names it as an example of exactly that.²

Local and country-specific scholarships

HEC maintains a page listing scholarships available for Brazil, China, Mexico, Russia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and others. Check HEC’s financing page for the list under your country.

Read that list with one question in mind: whose money is it? If the award is funded and granted by HEC — as the CMA-CGM Lebanon and Garzouzi awards are — it sits inside the no-combining rule, and taking it means not taking Foundation Excellence. If it is your own government’s, a national embassy’s or a private foundation’s, it is external and it adds. An earlier version of this post said, as a blanket statement, that these awards combine with the Foundation Excellence Scholarship. That is true only for the external half of the list, and the school’s own answer is unambiguous about the other half.²

How stacking actually works

The shape is one HEC award plus external money. Not two HEC awards, and not a full ride assembled from HEC’s own menu — HEC says plainly that it does not offer fully funded scholarships apart from the Imagine Fellowship.²

Best case for an Indian applicant: one HEC merit award (4,000 to 7,000 euros, capped at 15,000) plus the Charpak (~13,000 euros over a year). Total: around 18,000 to 20,000 euros. A second HEC award does not go on top of the first.

Best case for a strong general international: one HEC merit award plus the Eiffel across two years — which requires being a Round 1 applicant, because that is the only round HEC nominates from.² Total: around 35,000 euros, and the closest thing to a full ride on tuition that this menu produces.

Realistic average for an admit: Foundation Excellence, in the low thousands. Plan your finances assuming only this.

What this means for total program cost

Against €58,900 of tuition, one HEC merit award of a few thousand euros leaves you paying the large majority of it; a merit award plus a two-year Eiffel is the combination that takes out-of-pocket tuition down toward 25,000 to 30,000 euros — and it is available only to Round 1 applicants who are then nominated.¹ ² Living expenses in Paris run 1,200 to 1,500 euros a month — HEC itself budgets €1,500 a month for 2026, covering housing, food, compulsory health and civil-liability insurance, sport and leisure¹ — and are detailed in HEC Paris monthly expenses and HEC Paris three-year spend. Gap year internships pay 1,300 to 1,800 euros a month and cover living costs. The full ROI math is in HEC Paris MiM return on investment.

One charge no tuition figure includes, and HEC’s fees page does not mention: France’s CVEC student-life contribution, €105 for 2026-2027, owed by every student in formation initiale at a French higher-education institution — private grandes écoles included — and payable before you can complete administrative enrolment. Our cost of a MiM in Europe guide covers it and the national registration fees alongside it.

When to apply

Round 1 if you can (September or early October deadline) — but for a sharper reason than the one this post used to give.

This post previously said earlier rounds have “more scholarship money still available.” HEC’s own answer contradicts that for its own awards: *“Students have equal chances for a scholarship during every round of applications.”*² Whether the school’s budget genuinely runs level across the year is not something an outsider can audit, so take HEC at its word and stop treating Round 1 as a way to reach a bigger HEC cheque.

**The round still decides something much larger, though: the Eiffel is Round 1 only.**² That is not a matter of odds. Apply in Round 2 and the biggest single award available to an HEC MiM student — roughly €14,000 a year, up to €30,000 across two — is off the table entirely, because the school has no Round 2 candidate to nominate by the time Campus France’s file closes. If the Eiffel is realistically in play for you, Round 1 is not an optimisation, it is the entry condition.

Admission odds are a separate question from scholarship odds, and Round 3 does fight for leftover spots. For deeper admission advice, see HEC Paris admission requirements and how to build a MiM profile.

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Sources. Read at HEC Paris’s own pages on 2 September 2026 with a desktop browser user agent:

¹ HEC Paris — Master in Management, Fees and Financing — “Fees: € 58,900. The academic years are invoiced over the first two consecutive years (+ €2,950)”; tuition schedule M1 (2027/2028) €26,500 academic + €1,950 student service + €1,000 administrative = €29,450, the same for M2 (2028/2029); non-refundable application fee €170; “An additional € 2,000 is applicable to the tuition fees for international students”, with domestic, EU and Erasmus+-associated-country students exempt; €5,000 non-refundable deposit deducted from total tuition; living costs “Approximately €1,500/month in 2026.”

² HEC Paris — Master in Management FAQ, Scholarships section — the merit and need-based lists, “HEC Paris Scholarships cannot be combined. Merit-based scholarships can go up to 15 000 euros maximum”, “HEC Paris does not offer fully funded scholarships except for the Imagine Fellowship”, “you can combine HEC Paris with external scholarships such as Charpak Scholarship (only for Indian applicants), The Eiffel Scholarship (only for Round 1 applicants), or any other external scholarship”, “Students have equal chances for a scholarship during every round of applications. All scholarship results are final and cannot be reconsidered”, and the 72-hour results window.

Where HEC’s pages and this post’s older figures disagreed, the school’s page wins and the change is recorded above rather than quietly swapped. Scholarship terms, amounts and tuition are reset every cycle — confirm the live version before you rely on any of it.