Study in China: How much does it cost?
Cost of studies in China
When preparing to study in China, you need to calculate how much money you will need to cover your expenses. You may also need a letter from who will pay for the program to ensure they can cover the cost of the program. The absence or late payment of the program may result in the student’s refusal from the program.
Basic costs to study in China
The main categories of expenses to study in China are:
- Application fees: ($100-150)
- Visa fees: 500 / 900 yuan
- Tuition fees (depends on the type of program)
- Books: cost within 50 yuan
- Consumables: pens: 1-5 yuan, notebooks: 10-15 yuan
- Insurance: is necessary and students cannot register without it. Students can arrange it on their own and can be issued upon arrival in China. Ping An insurance company provides students with an insurance policy that costs 600 yuan per year.
- Accommodation: it depends on whether you choose to live on campus or off-campus. For example, in Beijing, renting a single-room apartment will require about 3000-4000 yuan, and for renting a double-room apartment, 4000-6000 yuan. Dorm accommodation can be slightly cheaper. Double-room: 1000-2000 yuan, single room: 2000-3000 yuan.
- Flight tickets: it will depend on which country you are flying from. You can find cheap tickets on Skyscanner.net
- Food: it will depend on you and your habits, university food can be very affordable and can cost 6-20 yuan per meal. Food outside of the university can also be inexpensive.
- Other living expenses: sports activities, bars or restaurants.
Transport
The good news is that the cost to live and study in China is low compared to other countries. For example, the subway in Beijing costs 3 yuan – 9 yuan (depending on the distance) and beer cost the same.
Before coming to China, it is recommended to use the above categories for budget planning and expected costs. Try to add a little more to expenses than you plan for each category. It’s always better to spend less than expected than the other way. Then, when you arrive in China, try to record your spending every month to keep track of your budget spending.
We also advise you to look through the table of expenses that we have prepared for you.
Earlier we wrote an article for you – “7 Tips – How to choose a city and university to study in China?” – we recommend you to read it.
Table of expenses
You can show our table to your parents so that they can help with the budget. This will give you an approximate breakdown of costs. We’ll also give you some tips and more details on the costs.
| # | City | Tuition + expenses per year | Total expenses per year | Total expenses per month | Accomodation per month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Beijing | 13,266 $ | 9,266 $ | 772 $ | 359 $ |
| 2 | Shanghai | 13,266 $ | 9,266 $ | 772 $ | 359 $ |
| 3 | Tianjin | 10,700 $ | 7,320 $ | 610 $ | 290 $ |
| 4 | Shenzhen | 11,600 $ | 8,197 $ | 683 $ | 317 $ |
| 5 | Nanjing | 9,380 $ | 5,880 $ | 490 $ | 250 $ |
| 6 | Hangzhou | 9,600 $ | 5,880 $ | 490 $ | 250 $ |
| 7 | Other cities | 8,400 $ | 5,400 $ | 450 $ | 220 $ |
| 8 | Hong Kong | 22,500 $ | 14,256 $ | 1,188 $ | 552 $ |
If you want to know more about the full cost of studies in China, then contact our consultants. They will write out the cost according to your preferences. Also, you can leave your questions in the comments below.
We started on that app because it is 1) awesome 2) free. You can also get Premium account for 6$ per month (extremely cheap). It will give you access to all training games, but they can be unlocked gradually, by learning gold coins. HelloChinese – is ChinesePod creators’ second startup. Which is also a famous platform for learning the Chinese language with a million users. The app has everything you expect from a gaming environment: earning points, tracking progress and bonuses. There are many micro-lessons which describe the whole material. Each lesson you can finish in 10 minutes. During this 10 minutes, you will learn a lot of new words and expressions. The speech recognition system will compare your pronunciation with reference. You can also download all material and prepare offline.
One more gaming app, similar to HelloChinese in terms of learning flow, rewards, competition and progress tracking, so they complement each other perfectly. The best app for beginners. It has many technologies as a speech evaluation system, calligraphy practice and words remembering system. Also can boasts a large interactive pinyin table, examples of word pronunciation recorded by a native speaker. During the whole studying process, charming pandas will assist you. For each lesson, you will have 4 pandas and can lose one for the mistake. In total, you will have 42 lessons, which is divided into 3-6 parts. Alerts from the app attract attention using the idiom 熟能生巧 – “repetition is the mother of learning“.
During the using of mobile phones and automatic conversion of pinyin to hieroglyphics, the need to memorize the order of writing the strokes disappeared. However, Skitter was created for people who disagreed with this position and want to master the Chinese calligraphy. It allows you to use your finger as a paintbrush and a display of your phone as a parchment. Thus, you can easily practice writing hieroglyphs on your phone screen. You can choose both simplified and traditional characters. The application will point the right order of writing strokes. Also, you can find many examples of using each character and its pronunciation. Skitter will help you master your Chinese calligraphy skills. But you have to pay for such a wonderful application. Since the free trial period is given for a week, and then you need to subscribe for a month, or for a whole year.
Another app to practice correct and quick writing of Chinese characters. Chinese Writer is a gaming application. You need to catch hieroglyph which is parachuting and in few seconds write the correct order of strokes before it disappears. In arsenal, you will have more than 5.000 hieroglyphs. All hieroglyphs are divided into several groups depending on their difficulty level by HSK standards.
Brainscape is the best Chinese flashcard memory app with interval memorization. The main goal of the application is to “recover in your memory as many forgotten cards as possible”. In the application, you can search for the cards with words you need, memorize them and repeat. There are 5.500 cards in total, some of them are free, while others have to be paid for. The feature of the application is the automatic estimation of the time for study and repetition, which is based on your grade from 1 to 5 of the difficulty of the word. It is unique when evaluating the complexity of a word, you should be honest with yourself in order to give the correct grade.
Hello HSK is your best assistant to prepare for HSK examination. The application covers all aspects of passing the exam. Preparation goes in several directions: listening, reading, grammar and vocabulary. There is also a base of tests, which are very similar to official examination. All material is divided into corresponding groups by thematic categories.
If you have a problem with reading Chinese language, then Du Chinese is the best application for you. In a huge database of material, which is updated every week, you will find the text for all tastes. Texts about culture, news, everyday life in China are intended to all levels of Chinese language proficiency. The pearl of this app is the translation of each word in the text depending on the context. You can also listen to the article and carefully follow the text. If you come across an unfamiliar word, you can add it to the collection and then repeat it from time to time. And on top of that, you can turn on pinyin above the text, which greatly simplifies the reading process for beginners.
