MBBS in LINK University Faculty of Medicine and Surgery

The University and What Makes It Different

Università degli Studi LINK, more widely known by its earlier name Link Campus University, has a genuinely unusual institutional history worth untangling before anything else, because three different founding years get thrown around and they're often presented as if they contradict each other. They don't. In 1999, it started life as the Italian branch of the University of Malta, based in Rome. In 2004, an Italian private education group called CEPU acquired a majority stake, a corporate ownership change rather than a re-founding. Then in 2011, by ministerial decree, it stopped being a foreign university's Italian branch and became a fully independent, recognised Italian private university in its own right. All three years are real, they just describe different moments in one continuous story.

Medicine, though, is a much more recent chapter entirely, and one worth being clear-eyed about. The Facoltà di Medicina e Chirurgia here was accredited by ministerial decree in November 2023, with its very first cohort starting in the 2023/2024 academic year. That makes this genuinely one of the newest medical programmes in the whole country, not a long-established faculty by any stretch.

This is a private university, confirmed explicitly on its own admissions pages, which sets it apart from every public Italian university on comparison lists like this one. There's no English-taught track for medicine here, teaching runs entirely in Italian, and admission works differently too, more on that shortly.

The degree is the standard Laurea Magistrale a Ciclo Unico in Medicina e Chirurgia, six years, LM-41. What's genuinely distinctive is where and how clinical training happens: in partnership with Ospedale San Pietro Fatebenefratelli, a Catholic religious-order hospital on Via Cassia in Rome, run by the Ordine Ospedaliero di San Giovanni di Dio, rather than one of Rome's big public teaching hospital networks.

Rome, the Main LINK Campus, and What's Actually There

The main Rome campus sits at Via del Casale di San Pio V 44, with an additional teaching site at Via Gregorio VII 601, both within the city. This is the flagship, original site for LINK's medicine programme, distinct from the newer satellite sites the university has since opened in the Marche region and Lombardy.

Rome, obviously, needs no introduction as a city, but it's worth being honest about what that means for a brand-new private medical faculty specifically. This programme sits in direct competition with some of Italy's oldest, most established medical schools, Sapienza, Tor Vergata, the Catholic university's Gemelli, Campus Bio-Medico, all long-running names with deep institutional reputations. LINK is starting from a very different position.

The religious-order hospital partnership is a genuinely distinguishing feature rather than incidental detail. Fatebenefratelli hospitals across Italy have their own long clinical tradition, separate from the public ASL and Azienda Ospedaliera-Universitaria system most other universities on this list rely on, which shapes the character of clinical placements here in a way worth understanding before applying.

Living costs in Rome run high by Italian standards, though not quite at Milan's level. Third-party estimates put a shared room somewhere between 450 and 800 euros a month depending heavily on neighbourhood, cheaper in areas like San Lorenzo or Pigneto, pricier in Trastevere or Prati, with an overall monthly student budget commonly estimated around 800 to 1,200 euros including rent.

Course Structure, Cost, and Practical Details

On structure: six years, 360 credits, the standard national format. Since Italy's 2020 reform, the degree itself carries qualifying status, and the practical requirement built into the final part of the course, rather than tacked on afterward, is a Tirocinio Pratico-Valutativo totalling 300 hours across medical, surgical, and general-medicine placements.

Admission is where this university genuinely diverges from the public-university model most of this list follows. LINK doesn't use Italy's new national semestre filtro system, and it doesn't use IMAT either. It runs its own, entirely separate entrance exam: 60 questions in Italian, covering biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, reading comprehension, and logical reasoning. For the 2024/2025 cycle, 150 places were available for EU and Italy-resident non-EU applicants, plus 10 for non-EU applicants resident abroad.

Tuition is the one area where this page can actually give you solid, confirmed numbers, which is rarer than you might think among the universities on this list. For the 2024/2025 year, first-year fees ran 20,050 euros, dropping slightly to 19,800 euros for each subsequent year, paid as an initial 2,000-euro deposit plus a 16-euro stamp duty, then split across four further instalments. That's a genuinely substantial, flat private-university cost, worlds apart from the income-scaled fees at Italy's public medical schools.

Given the price tag and the programme's genuine newness, this is realistically a choice for applicants who specifically want a private, Rome-based option and can comfortably cover roughly 20,000 euros a year, rather than a budget-friendly alternative to the public Italian system. Weigh that trade-off honestly before applying.

Quick Overview

Fee Structure

Why LINK's Medical Faculty Deserves a Harder Look Than You've Given It

Three Founding Dates, Not a Contradiction

1999 marks LINK's start as the Italian seat of the University of Malta, 2004 an ownership change when CEPU acquired a controlling stake, and 2011 the decree making it a fully independent Italian university. All three are real and non-conflicting.

One of the Newest Medical Programmes in Italy

Medicine was accredited in November 2023, with the first cohort starting that same year, taught in partnership with the religious-order hospital San Pietro Fatebenefratelli rather than a public ASL or polyclini

Honest Assessment

This is a private university with its own entrance exam, separate from semestre filtro and IMAT, and flat tuition around EUR 20,050 in year one, EUR 19,800 after. In return: a clear admissions process and a dedicated hospital partner from year one.