Money
A language school student and a university student live on the same money. Almost none of it arrives the same way.
Monthly income averages ¥169,000 at a Japanese language school and ¥171,000 in higher education — a difference of ¥2,000. Underneath that near-identical total, one group is funded by scholarships and the other by working, and the size of the swap is much larger than most people planning a budget expect.
JASSO asks 7,599 students what their monthly income is and where each part of it comes from. Split into the two big categories of institution, the totals land within ¥2,000 of each other. That similarity is the least informative thing in the table.
Averaged across all 5,226 higher education respondents, including those who receive nothing from that source. Table 5-5, reference figures.
Averaged across all 2,373 language school respondents, including those who receive nothing from that source. Table 5-5, reference figures.
Money from home is almost exactly the same in both — ¥76,000 and ¥78,000. Families do not appear to send more or less depending on the type of school. Everything that moves, moves between the other two bars.
Two different questions, and only one of them is usually asked
"How much is the scholarship" and "how likely am I to get one" are separate questions, and the survey answers both. Here is the same data split into how many students receive each kind of income, and how much they receive when they do.
| Source | Higher education share / amount | Language school share / amount |
|---|---|---|
| Money from home | 67.7% · ¥113,000 | 67.6% · ¥116,000 |
| Part-time work | 66.3% · ¥81,000 | 71.5% · ¥106,000 |
| Scholarship | 44.0% · ¥70,000 | 13.2% · ¥35,000 |
| Other | 8.1% · ¥79,000 | 6.5% · ¥117,000 |
| Help from friends | 2.4% · ¥36,000 | 2.7% · ¥42,000 |
| A spouse's income | 1.9% · ¥157,000 | 1.0% · ¥132,000 |
The scholarship line is where the two worlds separate. A higher education student has a 44.0% chance of one and it is worth ¥70,000 a month. A language school student has a 13.2% chance of one worth ¥35,000 — half the amount, at a third of the odds.
The work line moves the other way, and it moves twice: language school students are more likely to work (71.5% against 66.3%) and earn more when they do (¥106,000 against ¥81,000). That second part is the one people miss. It is not that they take slightly more shifts. It is a different working week.
What ¥106,000 a month actually costs you
The survey records hourly pay separately: half of all students who work are paid between ¥1,000 and ¥1,200 an hour. Put that against ¥106,000 and the arithmetic is uncomfortable.
Language school student
Per week, to earn ¥106,000 a month at ¥1,000–1,200 an hour. The legal ceiling on a student visa is 28 hours.
Higher education student
Per week, to earn ¥81,000 a month at the same rates. Roughly two-thirds of the workload.
These are our figures, not JASSO's, and they are averages of people who work — but they line up with what the survey measures directly. Among language school students who work, 72.1% put in 20 hours a week or more. Among master's students who work, 19.5% do. The money had to come from somewhere, and this is where.
Why we have shown the same table twice
JASSO publishes both versions, and they answer different questions. The charts use income averaged across everyone — including students who get nothing from that source. That is the version to use when you want to know what a typical month looks like, and the six bars add up to the total.
The table uses income averaged across recipients only. That is the version to use when you want to know what a scholarship is worth if you get one. Those numbers do not add up to anything, and a guide that sums them is describing a student who does not exist.
Mixing the two is the most common way to get a Japan study budget wrong by about ¥50,000 a month.
What to take from this
- Plan the family contribution at around ¥113,000–116,000 a month if you are receiving one at all. Two-thirds of students are, and the figure barely moves by school type.
- If you are going to a language school, do not budget on a scholarship. The chance is 13.2% and the average award is ¥35,000. Across everyone it is worth ¥5,000 a month.
- Budget the hours, not just the yen. Replacing a university scholarship with part-time work costs roughly five to eight hours a week, every week, and those hours come out of study time.
- The totals being equal is not reassurance. ¥169,000 and ¥171,000 describe two very different lives — one funded by an institution, one funded by shifts.
- Income is not the same as being comfortable. This article is only the money coming in. Where you live changes what goes out by up to ¥66,000 a month.
Sources. Japan Student Services Organization (JASSO), FY2023 Survey on Living Conditions of Privately Financed International Students. Table 5-5 (monthly income by source, both the recipients-only averages and the published reference figures averaged across everyone), Table 5-2 (the 5,226 higher education and 2,373 language school respondents used as the denominators), Table 5-6 (national average monthly income by region), Table 8-5 (weekly working hours), Table 8-10 (hourly pay). Survey PDF (Japanese). On the denominators: income questions were answered by 7,599 students, not the 7,867 who answered the survey overall. Percentages here are shares of the 5,226 and 2,373 respondents in each category, as printed in the survey. On our calculation: the weekly hours in the two panels are ours. We divided the monthly figure by ¥1,000 and by ¥1,200 — the band containing 50.2% of students — and by 4.33 weeks per month. They are illustrative of what the reported income implies, not a measurement of anyone's timetable. The 72.1% and 19.5% figures are JASSO's, measured directly. One check we ran: the six averaged-across-everyone figures sum to ¥171,000 and ¥169,000, which match the national averages printed separately in Table 5-6. Where a published total and its own components agree, we say so.
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