Cost of university for private international students
 

Hello,
I am a university student studying in Australia. I recently visited Japan, and I really want to go back and spend a year at a Japanese university (osaka-u looks most interesting so far). Anyway, my university has exchange agreements with several Japanese universities, however unfortunately not osaka-u. In Australia, to attend university as an international student would cost a huge amount of money (I certainly could not afford it, http://www.international.unsw.edu.au...eesugeng.html), however I cant seem to find a similar fee scale for any Japanese universities. It would almost seem as though that international students pay the same fees as national students. Can this be true??? If so, it would make more sense for me to go to Japan privately than through our exchange program.
Thanks

In my experience, exchange programs charge your home school tuition. I don't know how much Japanese universities charge, but I am not sure how you would get in without an exchange program.

Why Osaka U?

Through the exchange program I would be paying my usual university fees in Australia, which works out to be roughly 550 000 yen. This is the only fee table I could find on the osaka-u website Tuition Fees — Osaka University. I can't find any fee tables with prices similar to international prices at our universities. If these are international fees, I would rather do it privately so I could choose the university, and to a lesser extend the date.

Why Osaka? It seemed like a nice place to live for year. In addition, the university has an involvement with robocup, which is something I was involved in last year and would like to get back into in the future.

There are a limited number of Japanese universities that openly accept international students, and yes - you pay international student fees. The biggest reason I jumped for the JLPT1 and dealt with the whole mess of attending as a regular student. (I had a visa already, so didn`t need one from the school.) Could never have afforded the international tuition.

The best way is to simply contact the school and ask them directly about international student tuition.

I too would suggest taking a look around outside of Tokyo and Osaka - as they have the highest demand and high international fees. There are plenty of other universities involved in Robocup. Look around if you really want to come to Japan and cut costs.