University applications/Loans/ scholorship/grants

[Bubblegun]

We are now applying for university for next year, and wow....what a choice. Infact,pretty complicated stuff. So I've had to rely on the the other half to do their best to translate stuff. It "appears"

So choice 1
Apply for a full complete scholarship.
.
This does not need to be repaid. Very nice!
There is a grade requirement.Their grades must be above 3.5.( on their schools grading system that's out of five
There is an income requirement.

Choice 2 is Apply for grant.
Repaid but with no interest.nice!
There is a grade requirement.Again you must have at least 3.5 out of 5 on the school ranking system that's out of five!
There is an income requirement level.


Choice 3
Apply for the grant and repay the loan back with interest repayments. ok! Variable rates or fixed rate.
There is grade requirement.The students needs more than the "school average scores".
There is an income requirement.

Fixed interest rate 0.268%
Variable interest rate is 0.006%.
Reassessed every five years.



Choice 4
Hybrid
Apply for choice 2 and 3 combined.HYBRID. I guess that's part free and part interest)

There is grade requirement of more than the average school score.

choice 5
Apply for the combined HYBRID, Choice 4
2&3 and if rejected for, we can automatically apply for choice 2 The Grant.

choice 6
Apply for the combined, Choice 4
2&3. If rejected we can try for choice 2, then if rejected for 2, we can automatically apply for choice 3.

choice 7
If rejected for 2&3 we can apply for "just" choice 3.

The two tick Boxes at the bottom is if you wish to apply for money to help pay for university entrance and is a one time payment.

Too many choices.

Ill post a pic for those with a better translation than my wife. If anyone can help put this into better English for me,( she may have made an error) please let me know. but this is pretty complicated and I hope it will be helpful to some others.


With those interest rates Im so tempted to max it out and tell him to stick the money in a NISA for the next 45 years. I am not sure when the clock starts on when interest is accrued.

The guarantor.
1) A family member can be a guarantor or
2) Institutional guarantor. This incurs a monthly charge about 1200 yen, and appears more like an insurance system. We decided on number 2.

[runmanTX]

So I was wondering if you had any updates on your situation?

My daughter is headed to the UK next month for university. We have looked into borrowing money from Jasso. It seems the max she can borrow is 120k per month (for the entire course time of 3 years) plus a max of 500k yen for entrance fees. A bit lower than we expected. The kicker is that she has to wait until she's in the UK (after September) to even apply for this funding.
Another option is to borrow funds from a Japanese bank although I'm sure the interest would be higher than Jasso. We have yet to research this option.

Is your child starting uni in Japan or abroad?

[Bubblegun]

So I was wondering if you had any updates on your situation?

My daughter is headed to the UK next month for university. We have looked into borrowing money from Jasso. It seems the max she can borrow is 120k per month (for the entire course time of 3 years) plus a max of 500k yen for entrance fees. A bit lower than we expected. The kicker is that she has to wait until she's in the UK (after September) to even apply for this funding.
Another option is to borrow funds from a Japanese bank although I'm sure the interest would be higher than Jasso. We have yet to research this option.

Is your child starting uni in Japan or abroad?

Nothing new to report.
Our kids will be going to Uni in Japan.

[beanhead]

Another option is to borrow funds from a Japanese bank although I'm sure the interest would be higher than Jasso. We have yet to research this option.

My bank's education loan standard rate is 3.475%.
They take 1% off if you have your house loan with them, so 2.475%

Not so attractive compared to Jasso or the prefecture loan schemes.

[runmanTX]

So I was wondering if you had any updates on your situation?

My daughter is headed to the UK next month for university. We have looked into borrowing money from Jasso. It seems the max she can borrow is 120k per month (for the entire course time of 3 years) plus a max of 500k yen for entrance fees. A bit lower than we expected. The kicker is that she has to wait until she's in the UK (after September) to even apply for this funding.
Another option is to borrow funds from a Japanese bank although I'm sure the interest would be higher than Jasso. We have yet to research this option.

Is your child starting uni in Japan or abroad?

Nothing new to report.
Our kids will be going to Uni in Japan.

I kind of figured (after rereading your post )they were going to uni in Japan. Please keep us posted on your situation.

[runmanTX]

Another option is to borrow funds from a Japanese bank although I'm sure the interest would be higher than Jasso. We have yet to research this option.

My bank's education loan standard rate is 3.475%.
They take 1% off if you have your house loan with them, so 2.475%

Not so attractive compared to Jasso or the prefecture loan schemes.

3.475% is much better than my USA school loan back in the day. Shot myself in the foot with that one.
Unfortunately, we rent so no luck on a house loan discount.
Really hope the JASSO loan will be available to us.
Thanks for the info.

[Bubblegun]

I was wondering what people think.

If the student loan, is free of interest until they graduate, Would it make sense for mum and date to pay for tuition fees, then get the loan to pay it back to us? and pop it back into our NISA.

The reason I'm asking is because i thought it might have been like the UK system. Basically the student applies, and the loan company pay the uni directly.
But it seems to be,WE PAY THE UNI FEES, then we can apply for the loan.Unless I'm not being given the full information it seems a rather long way to go about thing.

A( mum and dad) pays B (University) to apple to C( loan company) to reimburse A(mum and dad)

Rather that student applies to C(student loan company) who then pay directly to B. ( the university) leaving mum and dad out of paying student loans.

[zeroshiki]

I'm pretty sure the loan is in the name of the student. Doing sleight of hand to say that the student loan is used for the NISA and the parents then pay the tuition (which wouldn't be assessed gift tax) is obvious and if you get audited will immediately get seen through by the tax agency.

[Bubblegun]

I'm pretty sure the loan is in the name of the student. Doing sleight of hand to say that the student loan is used for the NISA and the parents then pay the tuition (which wouldn't be assessed gift tax) is obvious and if you get audited will immediately get seen through by the tax agency.

Right, I see what you mean. Yes, the name is in the student's name, but it's actually the parents who pay for the tuition fees, FIRST. So we actually took money out of our funds to pay for it. ( which we don't really have the money for) So why if the student loans are for tuition fees, why don't they send it directly to the university for the course fees?

It seems like they are doing an accounting trick. First, Let's charge mum and dad for the money, then the loan company says, let's give the money to the kids ( which was originally for the tuition fees) which have been already paid for by mum and dad who managed to scrimp and save and have now dipped into their small retirement fund.

Would this be wrong then,
1) We paid for the tuition fees, and then the student loan money which goes into my kids bank account, could then be put into HIS NISA? Then if he graduates, he can take the money out to pay his loan off,(hoepfully it might grow) or if he drops out at say year 2, He would be responsible for the student loan himself.

Or

2) The money he gets paid into his bank account this year, sits there for the year, Then NEXT year when the UNI wants its fees, we just take out the money that he saved up in his bank account, then he pays for the second year with that, that way mum and dad arent paying a million out every single year.


Either way, the last thing we want is a student pissing it up, smoking, drinking and partying it up.
I'm really not a fan of this system. Surely if the tuition fee belongs to the student, so why are the parents having to stump it up first, especially if they can't really afford it? Surely there has to be a way for th student loan company to pay the uni directly then. I realise how hard this is when our japanese/englsih isnt that great to navigate all this stuff.

[RetireJapan]

My stepkids all got student loans: they would receive the money and then pay the fees after that.

We had to pay the entrance fee, etc though I think.