The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (simply University of Athens) is the oldest university in Southeast Europe founded in 1837. It is the largest institution of higher learning in Greece and among the largest universities in Europe with about 80,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students.

The Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (often called the Aristotelian University) is the largest university of Greece, named after the philosopher Aristotle. More than 96,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students study at the Aristotle University, 88,000 in undergraduate programmes and 8,000 in postgraduate programmes.