Self-Funding Study Abroad: How Joseph Paid for His Master’s

Updated 2026/10/16

After Joseph shared his application experience at our last talk, a lot of people wanted to know how he paid for studying abroad himself. So I invited him back to talk in depth about how he funded his Warwick MSBA tuition and living costs, and to answer questions we collected on Instagram (@jason_career).

The pre-departure costs people often forget

When planning to study abroad, people often underestimate what they’ll spend before they even leave, and it adds up. Here’s a quick rundown:

Necessary pre-departure costs

Tests:

• TOEFL: I hear it has gone up to NT$7,400 per attempt
• GRE: about NT$6,500
• GMAT: about NT$7,500

Score reports: sending TOEFL scores costs around NT$750 per school, I think. GRE is around 810 and GMAT is 1,500 (two schools cost double, and so on).

Application fees: these vary by school. Business schools generally charge US$100 to 200, and engineering schools are usually under US$100.

Visa: I don’t know about the US visa, but the UK visa is NT$30,000.

Flights: depends on the destination and airline, but a one-way ticket is at least NT$20,000.

Deposit: varies by school, but it’s basically at least NT$50,000.

Optional costs

Test prep classes: I never took any, so I’m not sure of the price, but I hear TOEFL, GRE and GMAT prep runs about NT$20,000 per test.

Admissions agencies: prices depend on quality. Friends of mine paid 100,000 and 80,000, but the usual price I hear is around NT$50,000.

Essay editing: usually charged at NT$3 to 5 per word, so one essay costs at least NT$3,000.

When did you decide to study abroad, and when did you start planning the money?

I started thinking about studying abroad in my second year of college. I was torn between going abroad and doing a master’s in Taiwan, and in the end I chose to go abroad.

I started saving at the beginning of my third year. I was also paying off a scooter loan and covering other living costs then, so money was tight. Start as early as you can.

Say you apply to only six schools, you’re good enough that you only pay the necessary pre-departure costs, and you pass every test on the first try. You’d need:

TOEFL + GRE, NT$123,860 in total: 7400+6500+7506+8106+100*6+30000+20000+50000

TOEFL + GMAT, NT$129,000 in total: 7400+7500+7506+15006+100*6+30000+20000+50000

These necessary costs cover test fees, score reports, application fees for 6 schools, the visa, a flight and the deposit. Add the optional costs (test prep, an agency, essay editing) and you’re looking at roughly NT$200,000.

How long did it take to raise your tuition, and how did you do it?

Counting from my third year, about four years. I used scholarships, part-time jobs, tutoring, translation work, programming gigs, and a full-time job.

• Scholarships: academic excellence awards ($6000 each), college scholarships ($6000 each), foundation scholarships ($6000 each), and the Foxconn scholarship (100,000 each)
• Part-time jobs: on-campus work and the occasional event gig, at the basic hourly wage
• Tutoring: Chinese, English and math for elementary through high school students, 400 to 800 per hour
• Translation: Chinese-to-English and English-to-Chinese jobs, NT$1.5 to 4 per word
• Programming gigs: 2000 per hour
• Full-time job: I’ll keep my monthly salary to myself

How do you apply for a student loan or Ministry of Education programs?

I know more about student loans. I only skimmed the Ministry of Education grants, and my impression is that most of them are only for PhD students. But I’m not sure!

With student loans, pay close attention to the household income limit. There are also caps by degree: up to 1 million for a master’s and up to 2 million for a PhD.

Household income has to be under 2 million a year. Unfortunately I didn’t qualify, so I took a personal loan at a rate at least 3% higher. For a student loan you need a guarantor, plus your own ID card and household registration, and the guarantor has to come in person to sign and verify.

You can find the details here: Fubon study abroad loans

While studying abroad, did you do on-campus internships or find other ways to earn money?

I charged classmates to teach them how to do their programming assignments, and I kept up the tutoring I already had back in Taiwan.

How did you estimate tuition and living costs? Prices vary a lot by region, so how did you set a budget before leaving?

School websites give an estimate for a full year or for the whole degree. Those numbers are pretty accurate, and if anything they slightly overestimate what you’ll spend.

You can also ask seniors who have studied abroad, or read posts online.

For London, budgeting 2.5 to 3 million for a year of tuition and living costs should be safe. In other parts of the UK, 2 to 2.5 million is plenty.

In the US, California and New York are more expensive and the programs are longer. Tuition and living costs for the whole degree there could total 4.5 million or more. A lot of my friends went over that, though they also lived a bit more lavishly, haha.

Did self-funding put extra pressure on you? Did you have to scrimp abroad and feel pushed to land a high-paying job?

The pressure was worst at the start, when I was preparing for all the tests and paying application fees and score reports. I didn’t have a full-time job yet, so the pressure was really, really heavy.

Picture this: you can’t afford prep classes, so you study for the tests on your own, and the money you have only covers one GRE attempt. If you miss your target score, you can’t go abroad, or you can’t apply to the schools you want. After that there’s the TOEFL, then the essays, and then a big pile of application fees to come up with.

You carry that pressure through every day of test prep, every day of essay writing, and every shift at work.

Stressful just thinking about it, right?

Abroad it was actually fine, because I had already worked out my costs, set aside an emergency fund, and had some small income from tutoring and helping with assignments. As for a high-paying job, that’s more of a personal goal than a source of pressure.

Click here 👉🏻 to see how Joseph turned around a first-year GPA of 2.0 and got into Warwick’s MSc Business Analytics (WBS MSBA)

A few words from the heart

That period of preparation was painful, really painful. If you offered me NT$1 million to live through it again, I’d say no (though for 100 million, maybe?).

It’s also the time I miss most. While studying on my own, I’d sometimes go to the gym or play ball with high school friends in the morning. In the evening we’d go to MOS Burger, where they studied while I wrote essays or worked on translation jobs, and then we’d grab a late-night snack together.

Back then I felt a lot of resentment. I thought I had a strong profile.

How many people can self-study for the GRE/TOEFL and get scores like mine on the first try?

And how many of them never had an English tutor and went to a school that wasn’t bilingual?

Why did I have to struggle so much when I was clearly capable?

Why was I still rejected by schools after working this hard?

Wasn’t I smarter and stronger than the others?

Now I’m at peace with it. During my studies I could clearly feel the gap between me and the others. I got to study abroad because I was capable and smart. They got to study abroad because their families supported them, or because they were lucky.

[Life is a long, steady accumulation. Keep improving yourself, and one day it will pay off.]