Technical University of Munich vs Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Our read

TUM and LMU sit in the same city but run very different cost models. TUM charges non-EU students EUR 2,000 to 6,000 a semester and publishes an acceptance rate of 8 percent, a rare disclosure among the universities on this site. LMU charges no tuition fee at all, to any student regardless of nationality, but sets a higher English bar at IELTS 7.0 and TOEFL 95, against TUM's IELTS 6.5 and TOEFL 88. TUM notes that some of its programmes assess English through its own aptitude test instead of a general exam, so the IELTS or TOEFL figure is not a fixed floor everywhere. LMU is the larger of the two by enrolment, at over 52,000 students against TUM's roughly 44,000, and admission and language rules there are set separately by each institute rather than centrally. A student choosing between them is really choosing between TUM's technical and engineering focus with a tuition bill, or LMU's broader faculty range with no tuition but a tougher entry language score. Check each university's own admissions page for the deadline and English rule of the specific programme in mind.