What a year costs: the price is set by your category, not by the country

The question is about a country; the answer is in a table

"What does a year in Japan cost" has no answer, and not because universities differ. Because the university's own table has no row for international students: it is split by level of study and by year of enrolment.

We opened the fee pages of three universities — Tokyo, Politecnico di Milano and Tsinghua — and in every case the sum depended on which cell of the table a particular person lands in. The country sets the order of magnitude. The category sets the bill.

Tokyo: three prices on one page, and a fee that is not tuition

The University of Tokyo publishes its rates openly. Undergraduate study is ¥642,960 a year. Graduate and doctoral study, except the School of Law, is ¥535,800. The School of Law is ¥520,800.

A separate line: those who enrolled in or before 2024 continue to pay ¥535,800. The rate is tied to the year you were admitted and is not changed retroactively. The university raised the price for new students, not for everyone.

And the one people forget to budget for: an admission fee of ¥282,000, paid once, on entry. It is not tuition and it is not an application fee — it is a third sum, and it is larger than a full year's tuition at many European universities.

Payment is made in two instalments a year, in May and November.

Milan: fees by family income, except for exactly the people this concerns

We have written before that Italian public universities have no single price: it is calculated from family income and assets through the ISEE figure, and whoever does not file the paperwork pays the maximum. That is true, and it has an exception worth knowing before you apply.

For 2026/2027 Politecnico di Milano sets the maximum at €3,943.04 a year: a first instalment of €880.04 on enrolment and a second, up to €3,003, in May.

Then comes the wording from its own page: non-EU students admitted to a master's programme with a first-level qualification obtained abroad pay the maximum amount — even if they submit an ISEE.

That is precisely the category a graduate of a Russian bachelor's degree falls into on the way to an Italian master's. The advice to file an ISEE and pay less does not apply to them, and it is better to learn that before spending a month gathering certificates through a CAF office.

China: the language of the programme sets the price

In China the category is the language you study in, and the difference is measured in multiples rather than percentages.

At Tsinghua, programmes taught in Chinese and English cost CNY 26,000–70,000 a year. Fully English-taught programmes start at CNY 100,000.

At Fudan, a bachelor's degree taught in Chinese is CNY 23,000–42,000 a year.

Which leads to a practical conclusion that is rarely put this way: a year spent on Chinese before applying can pay for itself in cash. Not as cultural experience, but as the difference on the bill for every year that follows.

Four questions instead of one

Instead of "what does a year in this country cost", ask these.

Which category am I in? Bachelor's or master's, EU or not, local qualification or foreign one. That is the main multiplier.

Is there a one-off fee? In Japan it is ¥282,000 on top of tuition. Sums like that live on the same page, in a different row.

What language is the programme taught in? In China that is a two- to four-fold difference for the same degree.

Which year is the rate tied to? At Tokyo, those admitted before 2025 pay the old one. Which means the price you see today is the price for people applying today.

The figures here were read on the universities' own pages in October 2026 — u-tokyo.ac.jp, polimi.it — and from our own data on Chinese universities. Rates change: before applying, check the university's page for your year rather than this article.