This contribution analyses the narratives of young Muslim university students on their perceptions of their passage through the Spanish education system. For this purpose in-depth interviews and focus groups were conducted. The study population was the total group of Muslim university students at the University of Alicante. In participants’ narratives it emerged that their passage through the educational institutions had been successful and had broadened their life opportunities. In contrast to the abundant academic literature that mostly highlights biases in the school system, these young people stressed the opportunities for personal emancipation and social integration offered them by their education, while at the same time indicating gaps in the curriculum and deficits in the intercultural and democratic skills and qualifications of teaching staff which negatively affected their schooling and citizenship participation, contributing to the perpetuation of the “Islamic other” and the normalization of day-to-day forms of racism and Islamophobia.