To complete and succeed in a university program, such as preschool and primary school teacher education, students need to master academic language. Depending upon the student’s educational and linguistic background, learning the academic language poses different challenges. This article reports on a study concerning students’ perceptions of possibilities to achieve academic literacies in higher education from the perspective of student agency. By analysing interviews with 20 multilingual students attending Swedish teacher education, the results revealed that different dimensions play a role in students’ preconditions to achieve agency when developing academic literacies: previous experiences, the here-and-now situation, involving students’ strategies and the use of available resources, and omit perceptions towards the future. The main conclusion is that multilingual students in higher education must be seen as a heterogeneous group of students with various experiences and knowledge that impact agency and success in higher education.