Total Price

[Redsky]

Hi, im 25 currently looking in to studying Chinese language in China, at the moment im a complete beginner thinking a 2 year course would be my best bet to learn a good amount. Just started back at work after traveling around Thailand so i need to plan a budget i have no idea on the price of tuition fees ive had a look on a few courses and the price seems to be around 24k rmb for 1 year?

So ontop of that with spending money and rent im guessing £15000-£20000 british pounds total for two years i will need to save? im just after comfortable living and nothing to crazy, seems fairly pricey but worth it in the end just hope i can stick at the saving and hope it won't take to long.

Also to join a Chinese uni on a language course will having no degree/Chinese communication skills be a problem?

Thanks.

[taylor04]

It's doable, might not be enough if you plan on traveling and going out a lot. If you live cheap you can survive on that, it also depends on what city you go to. If you really want to cut costs, avoid big modern cities like Shanghai and Beijing where living expenses can get quite high.

You can get into a language program, it's really easy. For a nicer university, 24k rmb sounds about right and books are very cheap, shouldn't be more than 10-15 dollars. If you don't know anything about Chinese now, I would actually recommend you get the basics down first. I consider spending time in China to learn pinyin and basic characters a waste of time as this can be learned anywhere. Also, without the basics it will take some extra time before you can communicate with anyone. This is my personal opinion though.

[anonymoose]

I think £15000 should be enough for two years, even in Shanghai, provided you don't intend to lead a lavish lifestyle.

I was at Jiaotong University in Shanghai last year, and as far as I recall, the tuition was RMB18000 for 1 year, so you're looking at about £4000 tops for 2 years. Apartment rental varies a lot depending on location, floor area and condition, but you should be able to get something reasonable for RMB3000-4000 per month in most locations, and if you really want to save and don't mind a small old apartment, you could even get that down to RMB2000 (although personally, I wouldn't want to spend 2 years in that kind of place), so as a reasonable estimate, I'd say you're looking at another £7000 for 2 years. Water, electricity, gas and internet, at a rough estimate, I'd say RMB300 per month, so for 2 years, that's about £700. Then your other expenses will be mainly food and transport, which will vary widely depending on your lifestyle, but RMB50 per day is more than enough to live comfortably in this respect. (I think a lot of Chinese people spend less than RMB20 per day on food.) So, at RMB50 per day, that would be another £3500 or so for 2 years.

Of the expenses I've mentioned above, that comes to about £15000. You will also have a few one-off expenses, like going for a medical exam and getting your residence permit, but these things are still only in the hundreds of RMB range, so will not break the bank.

Of course if you intend to do any travelling, or participate in lots of activities, then you will also need to factor in those things. Clubbing can be quite a drain as many places have cover charges of RMB50 or even RMB100, and you will probably end up forking out on a taxi afterwards to get home, but within the city area that will probably not come to more than about RMB50. Books and things are quite cheap, so you don't need to worry about that.