The Hidden Costs

Ok, so it's not a food post. This came up in a conversation with someone today and it seemed like a good time to write about it.

When you learn about study abroad programs at WVU, such as the one for Chubu, you are told that you pay tuition and board to WVU, and the student at Chubu pays theirs there, and then you just switch places. Well, it's not so simple. There are many hidden costs that WVU fails to inform you of. These things don't really worm their way to the surface until you're already in the process, sometimes very far in.

First, and most obviously, there are travel expenses. These include passport fees (roughly $130), visa application fees ($0 for US citizens, but the shipping is about $40), and of course, airfare (depends on your time frame; a round trip can be around $1500, but since I'm here for a year, can't get that; my ticket was around $1000, and probably will be on return as well, maybe as low as $750 if I buy it at the right time (who knows when?)).

Less obvious, but of which you are informed, is the international health/emergency insurance that WVU requires you to pay. This cost us $528. And we didn't find out about this until late November. I accepted the scholarship offer at the beginning of the semester in August, and didn't register for the spring semester at the beginning of November. And I hadn't even recieved any confirmation of acceptance yet!

About 3-4 weeks before I was to leave, I finally recieved an acceptance packet, which was pretty much just an invoice for ￥28,000. ￥20,000 of this is for "Administrative Fees" and the rest is for Insurance (Emergency and Accidental). The packet said to wire this before March 4th. WVU wasn't going to do it for me (as the packet suggested), so I had to do it myself. This cost (with the transfer fee) $350. Also, Wesbanco was unable to send it as yen, whereas PNC was able to convert it, then send it to protect it from fluctuating exchange rates. Since I've arrived, I've heard from Joe that the recieving bank also charges a transfer fee, so they don't even get all the money I sent, and I'll have to pay the difference the bastards at Mitsubishi Tokyo UFJ Bank took out, when I could have just carried it all over with me! I also have to enroll in the National Health Insurance plan, which costs ￥2,500/month and covers routine health/dental. That's three different, overlapping insurances now. All "required". I'll also have to eventually pay for "texts, materials, and fees for the Japanese Culture Class (estimated total: JPY48,000)." Though, that one isn't too surprising, tbh. Edit: I actually got a good bit of that back at the end of the semester.

On top of all that, there's day-to-day expenses, like food and transportation, possibly clothing and personal amenities. Breakfast and dinner are provided on weekdays, so food isn't a big deal. An electronic dictionary is recommended, most of which are like TI-83s: overpriced and outdated. I bought an ipod touch instead and got a free dictionary app (Kotoba). Now, it's a dictionary and much, much more(link to come). I've yet to get a cell phone, but I'll probably get the bottom-line, prepay plan of unlimited SRS for ￥300/month. I hate making phone calls anyway. I don't think we have to buy a lot of text books. I'm going to be traveling to Nagoya hopefully every weekend, so JR and Manaca (subway) card purchases are in my future. Prepay should suffice. It's about $10 there and back.