Apparently, some Japanese universities can be quite expensive – arts/music students may pay up to 20000 dollars per year, and those private medical schools are basically American levels of expensive.
Does Japan have a student loan policy?
https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/vg035y/how_do_japanese_students_deal_with_tuition_fees/
13 comments
Yes.
Public universities are much more affordable than private ones, as a general thing, though.
According to my wife it’s not as common to take out a loan in Japan than it is in other countries. Parents end up paying basically.
Not so really, loan is nearly impossible to obtain in Japan as a student. Usually someone else pay it off or through scholarship programs.
their parents pay for them
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Either the parents pay for it, or they can apply for a deduction/scholarship. There are scholarships that require paying back and there are those that don’t. For my alma matter (somewhat big? private uni in Tokyo 23ku), international students automatically get an 30% deduction when they enter which will continues as long as they maintain their GPA. The same thing applies to AO students whose parents annual income is lower than a certain amount.
In most cases, parents pay.
Loans are available, sometimes with “no payback” conditions (such as working in the same province where you went to university for X amount of years upon graduation).
The same type of loans are also available from private institutions, but only for areas with very high professional demand. That’s very popular for medical and nursing schools, sometimes with large hospital chains even paying you a salary to study.
There are heavy discounts in tuition available even in private universities. You usually have to keep grades above some level and/or show a ton of documents proving that you are really not able to pay for the full tuition.
My tuition was 75k
Parents. From what my wife told me it’s common for parents in Japan to start saving up for their kids’ education rather early.
Parents often pay. Otherwise scholarship-loans are common, sometimes but quite rarely regular scholarships.
They have parents to take care of all those bills. Most of my university students here in Japan are quite happy to remain in the care of their parents through university.
Unlike in the USA, few students pay for their own education. If their parents can’t afford it, most simply won’t go to university.
It takes a special brand of ballsy to attempt to put yourself through uni here. I’ve only met a few of them trying, and at least two of those didn’t make it all the way.
One who DID complete his education had a “secret” job as a host in a nightclub. (This paid very well, but the school would probably have found some reason to remove him from the school if they’d known.) I found out what he did purely by accident while talking in class, and kept my damn mouth shut. He was practically bouncing at graduation; he’d just gotten a job offer to work at an engineering company.
As a parent, I can confirm we’re paying for it 100%. It’s basically my wife’s yearly salary. So we shall live off mine for the next four years. Had a stern talk with the kid that we can only afford four years so if they don’t take it seriously, then they can quit or pay for it themselves. Thank goodness we only have one child.
Parents.