Master in Management (Grande École)

Audencia Business School placed 25th worldwide in the Financial Times Masters in Management 2025 ranking, with a weighted three-year salary of approximately US $92,000 and a 100% employment rate at three months.⁴ Founded in Nantes in 1900, Audencia is one of France’s original Grandes Écoles de Commerce and holds the rare triple-crown accreditation from AACSB, EQUIS, and AMBA — a distinction shared by fewer than 1% of business schools globally.³

Overview

The Master in Management (Grande École) is a two-year programme taught from Audencia’s Nantes campus.¹ It sits within the French Grande École tradition — a selective, post-preparatory-class pathway that combines rigorous academic training with significant professional exposure. The programme is available in English-language and bilingual (English/French) tracks, making it accessible to international students who are still building French proficiency.¹

Audencia has built a distinctive reputation around corporate social responsibility and sustainable management. CSR is embedded across the curriculum rather than treated as an elective add-on, a positioning that distinguishes it from many of its French peers. For a broader look at whether a MiM is the right credential for you, see our guide on whether a MiM is worth it in 2026.

Curriculum & Structure

The two-year programme opens with a core management year covering strategy, finance, marketing, organisational behaviour, and quantitative methods.¹ The second year allows students to specialise through a chosen major or track — options include management, strategy, finance, marketing, and CSR — often combined with an international exchange semester at one of Audencia’s partner institutions.¹

One thing this profile used to say about Audencia is not what Audencia says. It described an apprenticeship (alternance) track on the Master in Management through which a partner employer funds tuition and pays a salary. Audencia’s own scholarships-and-funding page, read 2026-09-07, states the opposite in two places — a note under work-study reading “the Master in Management (Grande Ecole) is not available in work-study format”, and an FAQ answering the question directly: *“No. The Master in Management (Grande Ecole) is a full-time programme and is not available in work-study format. However, several MSc and Mastère Spécialisé programmes at Audencia are available in apprentissage (work-study) format, where your employer covers part or all of your tuition fees.”*² So alternance is real at Audencia and it is real in the French grande-école system generally — see our guide to what alternance means in a French MiM — but not on this degree. If employer-funded study is the reason you are looking at Audencia, the MSc and Mastère Spécialisé programmes are where to look, not the MiM.

Funding on the Grande École programme is therefore scholarship-and-loan shaped rather than employer-shaped: merit-based awards of up to roughly 30% of programme fees, need- and diversity-based awards handled by the International Admissions Office, an early-application discount, and a fee that Audencia states it adjusts to your CROUS level if you are fiscally domiciled in France.²

Application & Deadlines

Audencia has published its September 2027 key dates, and they come with a caveat that changes how to read them: *“Admissions are open until June 2027, but may close early if class is full. Due to the limited number of seats available, candidates are strongly advised to apply before the Early Application deadline of January 31st, 2027.”*⁶

So there is one date to plan against — 31 January 2027 — and one that is a ceiling rather than a deadline. A file submitted in May 2027 is legitimate under the published window and may still find the class closed. Audencia quotes an admission period of up to three weeks from a complete application.⁶

Applicants who obtained (or are completing) their degree outside France do not use the domestic parallel-admission route: Audencia directs them to contact its International Recruitment Service at international@audencia.com.⁶ International students relocating to France should read our guide on moving to France as a student for practical preparation advice.

Tuition & Funding

The €38,250 question this profile has carried since July is now answered, and the answer is the reassuring one. Audencia’s programme page states “School fees 38,250€” without saying whether that is one year or the degree, and for two months this profile said so rather than guessing — the difference between “the two-year total rose by €2,250” and “the annual fee is €38,250” is roughly €38,000 to someone budgeting a degree.⁶ It is the two-year total. Audencia publishes a tuition table on its scholarships-and-funding page whose columns are Programs / Duration / Tuition Fees, and the Master in Management (Grande Ecole) row reads 2 years / €36,000 / €500 per year, with the page’s own FAQ restating it in words: *“At €36,000 for the full two-year Master in Management, Audencia is one of the most affordable triple-accredited French business schools.”*² So the two figures were never annual-versus-total — they are two intakes. The programme page has rolled to a 1 September 2027 start; the funding page still says “Apply now — September 2026 intake open”. This profile now prices the intake a 2027 applicant is applying to: €38,250 for the two years, against €36,000 for the 2026 entrants, a rise of €2,250 (6.3%).

The route that settled it is worth recording, because two runs had recorded the opposite: the URL this profile cited as “no longer resolves” had simply moved, from /en/student-experience/financing to /en/student-experience/financing-assistance, and the programme page’s own Funding link points straight at it.²

Two mandatory charges sit on top of tuition. Audencia adds service fees of €500 per academic year, payable on entry, and states these “do not apply to CROUS scholarship recipients or apprentices” — a carve-out that is generic Audencia wording and, on this programme, reaches only the CROUS half, since the MiM has no apprentices.² ⁶ Separately, France’s CVEC student-life contribution is €105 for 2026-2027, owed by every student in formation initiale at any French higher-education institution — a private grande école included — and payable before administrative enrolment, with no refund if you withdraw mid-year.⁷

So the honest two-year floor for a 2027 entrant on the standard route is €38,250 + €1,000 in service fees + €210 in CVEC ≈ €39,460, before any scholarship. There is no employer-funded route on this degree to net that down (see above), which makes Audencia’s merit awards of up to roughly 30%, its early-application discount and — for candidates fiscally domiciled in France — its CROUS-level fee adjustment the funding levers that actually exist here.² Living costs in Nantes are meaningfully lower than in Paris, which is a relevant factor when comparing total cost of attendance across French programmes; Audencia itself budgets €800–€1,100 a month in Nantes against €1,500–€2,000 in the capital.²

Career Outcomes

The Financial Times 2025 ranking reports a weighted three-year salary of approximately US $92,000 and a 100% employment rate at three months for Audencia MiM graduates — these are the FT’s standardised cross-school metrics.⁴ Separately, Audencia’s own reported average annual salary for the 2025 graduating cohort is approximately €47,000, a school-reported figure that reflects earlier-career earnings and a different measurement methodology.¹ The two figures are not directly comparable and should not be blended.

Graduates move into consulting, finance, marketing, and sustainability-focused roles. The school’s CSR emphasis tends to attract employers with active ESG mandates. Detailed employer-by-employer or industry-breakdown data are not officially published, so no percentages are stated here.

Campus & Reputation

Audencia’s main campus is in Nantes, France’s sixth-largest city and consistently ranked among Europe’s most liveable mid-size cities. The school’s QS Management 2026 rank of 34th reflects its standing as a recognised European player outside the very top tier.⁵ Its triple-crown accreditation and 125-year history give the degree durability and recognition with graduate recruiters across Europe. For a direct comparison of French versus US options, see our piece on MiM vs MBA.