Switzerland or Japan?

World-class research at low tuition, gated by the hardest admission and the highest cost of living in Europe.

Far cheaper than its reputation, with government scholarships that cover everything — and a job market that does not open without the language.

ETH Zurich and EPFL charge among the lowest tuition of any top-tier research university on earth — the wall here is entrance and living costs, not fees.

National universities charge international students exactly what they charge Japanese students, and the MEXT government scholarship removes even that while adding travel and a monthly allowance.

• Tuition at the federal institutes is a fraction of what comparable universities charge internationals.
• Research funding per student is exceptional, and PhD positions are salaried jobs with real wages.
• Deep tech, pharmaceuticals and quantitative finance all hire locally at very high salaries.
• Central location in Europe with infrastructure that simply works.
• Graduate salaries are the highest in Europe by a distance.

• National university fees are set nationally and are identical for international students — there is no separate international price at all.
• The government scholarship covers tuition, flights and a monthly allowance, and it takes undergraduates as well as researchers.
• Research groups in materials, robotics, electronics and the basic sciences are world-class and take students seriously.
• It is safe, orderly and superbly connected, and student life is manageable without a car or a large budget.
• An ageing population means the country now actively wants skilled foreign graduates, which was not true a decade ago.

• Cost of living is the highest in Europe — rent alone can exceed a full year's tuition elsewhere.
• Bachelor's teaching is often in German or French; the English offering is mostly at master's level.
• First-year attrition at the federal institutes is deliberately high: getting in is not staying in.
• Non-EU work permits are quota-limited, so staying after graduation is competitive even with an offer.
• Housing near the universities is scarce and expensive enough to determine where you can study.

• Business-level Japanese is the real entry requirement for work, and English-track degrees postpone that problem rather than solving it.
• Graduate hiring runs on a rigid annual calendar that begins more than a year before graduation; missing it means waiting a year.
• Workplace culture expects long hours and deference, and international graduates leave over that more often than over the work itself.
• Undergraduate entrance examinations at national universities are demanding and conducted in Japanese.
• Being foreign stays visible in a way it does not in Canada or the Netherlands, socially and especially in housing.
• Moving in is expensive — deposits, key money and guarantor requirements front-load the cost of the first year.

Low tuition, extreme living costs. Budget for the city, not for the university — that inversion catches families out.

Cheaper than almost anyone expects: national university fees are identical for international and domestic students, private universities cost more but not Western amounts, and the government scholarship removes fees entirely while paying an allowance. The genuine costs are the move-in expenses and Tokyo rent — Osaka and Kyoto are materially cheaper for the same quality of teaching.

Direct admission for internationals is restrictive; many applicants need a recognised qualification plus an entrance examination. Master's entry is easier for a strong bachelor's graduate.

For undergraduate places, an examination for international students plus the university's own test and often an interview, largely in Japanese. For research and scholarship routes, a supervisor's acceptance matters more than anything else — you find the laboratory first and apply through it.

Six months to look for work after graduation, then an employer-sponsored permit subject to quotas for non-EU nationals.

A designated-activities status lets graduates stay to look for work, and routes for skilled graduates have widened as the workforce shrinks. It is one of the more predictable systems here — provided you have the language, which is the condition attached to everything in Japan.

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