cities in China
In most countries the city changes your cost. In China it can change whether a post-study work route exists for you at all — and the cheapest cities are the ones with the fewest.
China does not operate a national post-study job-search visa. What it has instead is a set of municipal schemes: a handful of cities have introduced easier work routes and internship allowances for international graduates of their own universities, and most cities have not. That is a city-level consequence with real weight, and it runs in the opposite direction to cost.
The cost tier is the other axis, and it is large. Beijing and Shanghai sit at the top of both the tuition and living ranges; Wuhan, Xi'an and the other tier-2 university cities sit well below them, which is why most of the Nepali MBBS cohort is in tier-2 China.
One thing does not vary by city at all: whether your medical degree will license you at home. Tap a pin to open a city.
costs more / mid-range / costs less compare these cities to each other, not to anywhere else. They are our reading of the spread across China, not a published index — the sourced money figures are on the costs page.
What changes between Chinese cities — and what does not.
Post-study routes are municipal
Shanghai, Beijing and parts of Guangdong have graduate work schemes. Most cities do not. If staying to work matters to you, this is the deciding factor, not tuition.
Cost tiers are steep
The gap between tier-1 and tier-2 is far larger than the gap between cities within a tier — on tuition and on living costs both.
MBBS recognition is national, not local
The Nepal Medical Council recognises institutions, not cities. A cheaper city with an unrecognised university is not a saving.
Work rights during study do not vary
Off-campus work needs university approval and an immigration endorsement everywhere in China. No city relaxes that.
We publish no rent figures
No Chinese authority publishes student rents by city, and the numbers in circulation trace back to agency blogs. Ask your university for its own dormitory rates instead.