University fees in Singapore are heavily subsidised for citizens. A subsidised undergraduate degree at an autonomous university costs a Singapore citizen roughly S$8,300 to S$12,750 a year for most courses, which works out to about S$33,000 to S$51,000 over four years. The big exceptions are Medicine and Dentistry at around S$33,000 a year, and double-degree or special programmes that run longer. Those figures are the MOE Tuition Grant rates that every Singaporean citizen gets automatically, with no bond. Permanent residents pay roughly 40 percent more, and international students on the grant pay around 2.5 times the citizen rate at NUS and NTU (more at SMU and on the non-ASEAN tier). The way you pay changed in 2026: the old Tuition Fee Loan, Study Loan and Overseas Student Programme Loan are being merged into one Higher Education Student Loan (HESL) from 1 July 2026. This guide gives you the exact 2026 per-year fees by university and faculty, the four-year totals, every funding route ranked by cost, and the maths on whether to borrow, use CPF, or pay cash.
For a Singapore citizen on the MOE Tuition Grant (which is automatic, no application and no bond), the subsidised tuition fee for the AY2026/2027 intake at the National University of Singapore is S$8,300 a year for Humanities and Sciences, S$8,300 for Computing, S$9,700 for Business and S$12,750 for Law. Medicine (except Nursing) and Dentistry are the outliers at S$33,200 and S$32,750 a year respectively. NTU charges the same S$8,300 for most programmes; SMU runs a little higher, at S$11,550 a year for its general degrees and S$12,750 for Law.
These are per-year figures, fixed at the rate of your intake cohort for the normal duration of your degree. NUS and SMU both guarantee the fee will not rise during your candidature, so a 2026 entrant pays the 2026 rate for all four years even if newer cohorts pay more. Multiply by three years (most arts and science degrees), four years (engineering, business honours, law) or five years (medicine) to get the total.
Two things people get wrong. First, the headline subsidised figure for citizens is GST-exclusive, because MOE absorbs the GST; you do not add 9 percent. Second, these tuition figures exclude compulsory miscellaneous fees (at NUS for AY2026/2027, a Student Services Fee of S$95 to S$112.50 a semester plus a S$67.50 Health Service Fee, so roughly S$325 to S$360 a year for a citizen), hostel, food, transport and materials. Tuition is the largest line, but it is not the whole cost of getting a degree.
The table below shows the per-year subsidised tuition fee for the AY2026/2027 intake. NUS and NTU figures are from their official AY2026/2027 fee schedules; SMU figures are from its AY2026/27 fee page. SUTD charges a flat annual fee, while SIT and SUSS bill per credit unit rather than per year, so their figures are expressed as an annual equivalent and a degree-total range. SIT, for example, charges a citizen S$156 a credit unit for Nursing (180 units, about S$28,000 for the degree) up to S$181.50 a credit unit for its Computer Science honours degrees (240 units, about S$43,560). Run your exact programme through each school's fee checker before you budget.
The pattern across all six autonomous universities is the same: lab and studio-based courses cost a little more than lecture-based ones, professional degrees (law, medicine, dentistry, architecture) cost more, and the spread between a citizen, a PR and an international student is large. A PR pays roughly 1.4 times the citizen fee. The international column below shows the non-ASEAN (Tier C) grant rate, which runs about 2.5 times the citizen fee at NUS and NTU; ASEAN international students pay less, and at SMU the non-ASEAN rate is higher still. Check each university's fee table for your exact citizenship and course.
| University / Course | Citizen / year | PR / year | Intl (other) / year | Typical years | Citizen 4-yr est. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NUS Humanities & Sciences | 8,300 | 11,600 | 21,400 | 3-4 | ~33,200 |
| NUS Computing | 8,300 | 11,600 | 21,400 | 4 | ~33,200 |
| NUS Business | 9,700 | 13,550 | 22,200 | 4 | ~38,800 |
| NUS Law | 12,750 | 17,800 | 30,450 | 4 | ~51,000 |
| NUS Medicine (except Nursing) | 33,200 | 48,900 | 87,800 | 5 | ~166,000 (5 yr) |
| NUS Dentistry | 32,750 | 48,450 | 84,550 | 4 | ~131,000 |
| NTU most programmes | 8,300 | 11,600 | 21,400 | 3-4 | ~33,200 |
| NTU Business / Accountancy | 9,500 | 13,300 | 21,800 | 3-4 | ~38,000 |
| NTU Medicine | 36,100 | 51,850 | 91,250 | 5 | ~180,500 (5 yr) |
| NTU Renaissance Engineering | 13,500 | 20,100 | 32,000 | 4.5 | ~60,750+ |
| SMU most programmes | 11,550 | 16,100 | 47,700 | 4 | ~46,200 |
| SMU Law | 12,750 | 17,800 | 56,150 | 4 | ~51,000 |
| SUTD all programmes | ~13,500 | ~18,900 | ~31,500 | 4 | ~54,000 |
| SIT (credit-unit basis) | ~7,000-11,000 | ~10,600-16,800 | ~16,400-29,000 | 3-4 | ~28,000-44,000 |
| SUSS (credit-unit basis) | ~7,500-8,500 | ~10,500-12,000 | ~17,000-20,500 | 4 | ~30,000-34,000 |
The same seat in the same lecture theatre carries five different price tags, set by the MOE Tuition Grant tier you fall into. A Singapore citizen sits at the bottom on Tier A. A permanent resident pays the Tier B rate, roughly 40 percent more. International students split into two grant rates, an ASEAN tier and a higher non-ASEAN tier, and then there is the non-subsidised fee that applies if you take no grant at all (or already used one for an equal or higher qualification).
The gap is wide enough to change a family's whole funding plan, so it pays to know exactly which tier you are in before you read any headline figure. Using a general NUS or NTU degree as the reference point, the ladder below shows the per-year rate for each tier and how it compares to the citizen rate. Professional degrees scale the same way, just off a higher base.
Two points the headline numbers hide. PRs and international students who take the grant sign a three-year bond to work for a Singapore-registered company after graduating, which a citizen never has to. And the international and non-subsidised rates are GST-inclusive, so the 9 percent is already baked into the figure you see, unlike the citizen rate where MOE absorbs it.
| Fee tier | Per year | Vs citizen rate | Three-year bond? | GST |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Citizen (Tier A) | ~8,300 | Baseline | No | Absorbed by MOE |
| PR (Tier B) | ~11,600 | About 40% more | Yes | Absorbed by MOE |
| International, ASEAN (Tier C) | ~18,050 | About 2.2x | Yes | Included in fee |
| International, non-ASEAN (Tier C) | ~21,400 | About 2.6x | Yes | Included in fee |
| Non-subsidised (no grant) | ~33,400+ | About 4x | No bond, no subsidy | Included in fee |
Tuition is the sticker price; the all-in cost of a degree is higher. The honest way to budget is to take the four-year tuition total and add the living and incidental costs that every student carries, whether they stay on campus or commute from home.
If you live at home and commute, your add-ons are modest: compulsory miscellaneous fees (roughly S$325 to S$360 a year at NUS for a citizen, combining the Student Services Fee and Health Service Fee; check each university's own schedule), textbooks and materials (S$300 to S$800 a year, less if you buy used or borrow), a laptop (a one-off S$1,000 to S$2,000), transport, and food on campus. That keeps a general-degree citizen's total cost in the region of S$40,000 to S$50,000 for the whole degree.
If you stay in a hall of residence, add the big one: on-campus accommodation runs roughly S$3,000 to S$8,000 a year depending on room type and meal plan, so two or four years of hall can add S$10,000 to S$30,000. The choice between staying in hall and commuting is, in pure money terms, often a larger decision than which faculty you enter. Work it into your plan before you accept a place, not after. Mapping this against the rest of your household budget is exactly what the personal budget calculator is for.
Not everyone gets an autonomous-university place, and the private institutions are the common fallback. The key difference is money: a private or overseas-partner degree gets no MOE Tuition Grant, so a Singaporean pays close to the full course fee with no subsidy. That is why a SIM, JCU or Kaplan bachelor's can cost as much as, or more than, an unsubsidised place at NUS.
Private fees also work differently. Many are quoted as a total programme fee for an accelerated two-to-three-year track rather than a per-year figure, and most are GST-inclusive. A degree awarded by an overseas partner (for example a University of London or an Australian university programme delivered in Singapore) costs roughly what the home campus charges an overseas student, minus the airfare and accommodation you save by studying here. The table below gives published total-programme fee ranges for a bachelor's at the larger private providers; the exact number depends on the awarding partner and intake, so confirm on the provider's site.
The financial-aid picture is thinner too. Government bursaries and the HESL are tied to the autonomous universities, so private-school students lean on the institution's own scholarships, instalment plans and the bank or private education loans that sit at the expensive end of the funding ladder. If cost is the deciding factor and you have an autonomous-university offer in hand, the subsidised route almost always wins on pure money.
| Institution / type | Typical total degree fee | Subsidy | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| SIM (overseas-partner degrees) | ~S$25,000-60,000+ | None | Fee varies widely by awarding university |
| James Cook University Singapore | ~S$55,000-70,000 | None | Accelerated tracks; GST-inclusive |
| Curtin Singapore | ~S$30,000-45,000 | None | Australian-awarded degrees |
| Kaplan / PSB Academy | ~S$25,000-45,000 | None | Partner-awarded bachelor's |
| Unsubsidised seat at an autonomous uni | ~S$130,000-190,000 | None (no grant taken) | For comparison only |
This is the biggest change for the 2026 intake. From 1 July 2026, MOE merges the Tuition Fee Loan, the Study Loan and the Overseas Student Programme Loan into a single Higher Education Student Loan (HESL). If you start university in 2026, the HESL is the government loan you will use, not the old TFL.
The HESL has two parts. The Base Provision is not means-tested and is open to every eligible student: it covers up to 90 percent of the subsidised tuition fee for a citizen, up to 65 percent for a PR and up to 45 percent for an international student. The Means-tested Provision is for lower-income households (gross monthly household per capita income up to S$3,500 for citizens) and tops up the rest of the tuition plus a living allowance of up to S$4,100 a year.
The terms are student-friendly while you study. The loan is interest-free for your entire candidature; interest only starts when you graduate or leave the course. After that, the rate is the 3-month compounded SORA plus 1.5 percentage points (a late-payment rate of SORA plus 4.5 points applies if you fall behind), reset every 1 March and 1 September. You repay over up to 10 years with a minimum instalment of S$100 a month. Existing TFL and Study Loan holders keep their current loans and do not need to switch.
The CPF Education Loan Scheme lets a student use CPF Ordinary Account savings, their own or a parent's, spouse's, or in some cases a sibling's or relative's (the last on a case-by-case basis), to pay the subsidised tuition fee. It can cover up to 100 percent of the subsidised tuition fee, capped at 40 percent of the available OA savings of the CPF member whose account is used.
The cost is the CPF OA interest rate, currently 2.5 percent a year (the floor rate, unchanged for April to June 2026). That is lower than the HESL's SORA-plus-1.5 and far below any private student loan, which makes it the cheapest formal borrowing route on paper. Repayment starts one year after the student graduates or leaves the course, in cash, over up to 12 years, and the cash goes back into the CPF account it came from, with interest.
The catch is the opportunity cost. Money pulled from a parent's OA stops earning CPF interest and, more to the point, is no longer available for housing. If your parent is mid-mortgage on an HDB flat, draining their OA to fund tuition can leave a gap in their home-loan servicing. The interest is genuinely cheap, but the opportunity cost of locking up CPF that could compound for retirement or service a property loan is real. Weigh it against the HESL before defaulting to CPF just because the rate looks low. A look at the CPF system explains what else that OA balance is doing.
Before you borrow anything, exhaust the money you never have to pay back. The MOE-funded bursaries at the autonomous universities are tiered by household income, and the thresholds are wide: a Singaporean qualifies with a gross monthly household income of S$9,000 or less, or a per capita household income of S$2,250 or less, which reaches up to about two-thirds of households. The top tier is generous, covering roughly 75 percent of the subsidised general-degree fee for a citizen. From AY2026, the most-needy Medicine and Dentistry students pay no more than S$5,000 a year after their bursary, down from the much larger sticker fee. Each university also adds its own bursaries, hardship funds and book grants on top.
Scholarships are the other free-money route, and they are not only for top students. Beyond the prestigious bonded awards (PSC, statutory boards, large firms), each university hands out merit and need-based scholarships, and many small private and community scholarships go unclaimed every year because few people apply. The effort-to-payoff ratio on a S$5,000 scholarship application is hard to beat.
The order of operations matters: apply for bursaries and scholarships first, then size your loan to the gap that is left, rather than borrowing the full fee and treating any grant as a bonus. Every dollar of bursary is a dollar you never pay interest on. The money management guide covers how to sequence saving, grants and borrowing.
Funding a degree is a stacking exercise, not a single choice. Build the bill from the cheapest source upward and you minimise lifetime interest. The cheapest money is the money you do not repay, then subsidised loans, with private loans a distant last.
In practice the order is: cash savings and family support you can afford without breaking an emergency fund; bursaries and scholarships; the CPF Education Scheme if a parent has spare OA not needed for housing; the HESL for the remaining tuition; and only then a bank or private education loan. Skip private loans unless you have run out of every cheaper option, because their rates are several points above the HESL.
A sensible blend for a citizen on a general degree: pay miscellaneous fees and living costs from cash and part-time work, claim any bursary you qualify for, and take the HESL Base Provision for up to 90 percent of tuition so you keep your CPF and family cash intact and only start paying interest after you are earning. If your family has idle CPF OA and no housing pressure, swapping the HESL for the CPF scheme on part of the tuition can shave the interest cost further. The decision turns on whether that OA money has a better use, the same trade-off behind any CPF Ordinary Account withdrawal.
Tuition is not fixed for the next generation. Education costs in Singapore have risen faster than general prices for two decades, so a parent budgeting for a toddler should plan for a bigger bill than today's, even though the MOE Tuition Grant has held the citizen rate stable enough that newer cohorts see only modest increases. The protection cuts both ways: NUS and SMU lock your fee at the intake-year rate for your whole degree, but each new cohort can be charged a higher starting rate than the one before.
If your child is more than a few years from university, the practical move is to start setting money aside now and let it grow, rather than facing the full sum in one go. A modest monthly amount invested over ten or fifteen years does most of the heavy lifting through compounding, and you can size the target to a realistic four-year total of S$40,000 to S$60,000 for a general degree, more for medicine. The compound interest calculator shows what a monthly contribution becomes by the time your child matriculates, and the savings goal calculator works backwards from the bill to the monthly amount you need to put away.
Where you park that money matters as much as how much. An education pot you will not touch for a decade can sit in growth assets; one you need in two years should not. The trade-off between safety and return on a fixed timeline is the same one behind any goal-based plan, and starting early is what turns a daunting figure into a manageable monthly habit. A look at how investing works helps you match the pot to the timeline.
A subsidised local degree is one of the better-value investments a young Singaporean can make, mostly because the government carries the bulk of the cost. A citizen pays roughly S$33,000 to S$51,000 in tuition for a general or professional degree, while the unsubsidised, non-grant fee on the same course runs S$130,000 to S$190,000. The MOE Tuition Grant is, in effect, a discount of well over half on the true cost, before any bursary.
Against a fresh-graduate median gross monthly starting salary of about S$4,500 in full-time permanent work (2025 Graduate Employment Survey), and higher in fields such as information and digital technologies, a S$33,000 tuition bill is usually paid back within the first year or two of the salary premium a degree commands over a diploma. That does not make every course a good bet; a degree you will not use, financed with expensive debt, can still be a poor trade. The arithmetic favours degrees that lift your earning power in a field with real demand, financed with the cheapest money you can find.
If you do borrow, clear the HESL on a schedule that fits your income rather than the maximum 10 years by default, because paying it down faster cuts the SORA-linked interest you carry. Running the numbers on what a graduate salary leaves after the loan instalment is straightforward with the salary calculator, and the opportunity cost of the years spent studying belongs in the calculation too.
For the AY2026/2027 intake, a citizen on the MOE Tuition Grant pays about S$8,300 a year for most arts, science, engineering and computing courses, around S$9,500 to S$9,700 for business, and S$12,750 for law. Over a typical four-year degree that is roughly S$33,000 to S$51,000. Medicine and Dentistry are far higher at about S$33,000 a year. These citizen figures are GST-free.
No. Singapore citizens are awarded the Tier A Tuition Grant automatically when they start their degree, and there is no service bond. Permanent residents must sign a Tuition Grant agreement and serve a three-year bond working for a Singapore-based company after graduation; international students who take the grant also serve a three-year bond.
From 1 July 2026, the Higher Education Student Loan replaces the Tuition Fee Loan, Study Loan and Overseas Student Programme Loan. Its Base Provision covers up to 90 percent of subsidised tuition for citizens with no means test, and a means-tested top-up covers the rest plus up to S$4,100 a year living allowance for lower-income households. It is interest-free while you study, then charges 3-month compounded SORA plus 1.5 percent, repayable over up to 10 years. Existing loan holders keep their current loans.
International students on the MOE Tuition Grant pay roughly S$21,000 to S$22,000 a year for most courses (inclusive of 9 percent GST), about 2.2 to 2.6 times the citizen rate. Medicine for international students runs around S$88,000 to S$91,000 a year. Without the grant, fees are much higher again. International students who take the grant commit to a three-year service bond in Singapore.
Yes, through the CPF Education Loan Scheme. A student can use their own or a parent's, spouse's, or in some cases a relative's CPF Ordinary Account savings to pay up to 100 percent of subsidised tuition, capped at 40 percent of that account's available OA savings. The cost is the OA interest rate (2.5 percent in 2026), and you repay it in cash, over up to 12 years, starting one year after graduation. Weigh it against the lost CPF interest and any housing needs before using it.
If you live at home, add compulsory miscellaneous fees (roughly S$325 to S$360 a year at NUS for a citizen, made up of the Student Services Fee and Health Service Fee), books (S$300 to S$800 a year), a laptop (S$1,000 to S$2,000 once) and daily transport and food to the tuition total, which keeps a general citizen degree around S$40,000 to S$50,000 all-in. Staying in a hall of residence adds roughly S$3,000 to S$8,000 a year, which can lift the total by S$10,000 to S$30,000.
Private institutions and overseas-partner degrees (such as those at SIM, JCU, Curtin or Kaplan in Singapore) do not receive the MOE Tuition Grant subsidy, so students pay close to the full cost, commonly S$20,000 to S$50,000-plus for a bachelor's degree. The autonomous universities look cheap mainly because MOE absorbs the bulk of the true cost for citizens and grant-holders.
On rate alone, the CPF scheme (2.5 percent) is cheaper than the HESL (SORA plus 1.5 percent). But the HESL is interest-free until you graduate and does not touch your family's CPF, while the CPF scheme locks up money that could be earning CPF interest or funding an HDB loan. Use CPF only if a parent has genuinely spare OA with no housing need; otherwise the HESL usually wins on flexibility and protects your family's CPF.
For a citizen on a general degree, NUS and NTU are the cheapest at about S$8,300 a year, with SIT and SUSS in a similar band on their credit-unit basis. SMU runs a little higher at S$11,550, and SUTD is the priciest of the general programmes at about S$13,500 a year. Across all of them, Medicine and Dentistry are the most expensive courses by a wide margin at roughly S$33,000 to S$36,000 a year before any bursary, with Law the next step up at S$12,750.
A permanent resident pays the Tier B grant rate, roughly 40 percent more than a citizen on the same course. For a general NUS or NTU degree that is about S$11,600 a year versus S$8,300 for a citizen, and a PR on the grant also serves a three-year bond working for a Singapore-registered company after graduating, which a citizen does not.
Education costs in Singapore have risen faster than general inflation for two decades, and each new university cohort can be charged a higher starting rate than the one before. The MOE Tuition Grant has kept citizen increases modest year to year, and NUS and SMU lock your fee at the intake-year rate for your whole degree. If your child is years away from university, budget for a bill larger than today's and start an education savings pot early so compounding does the work.
On pure money, the autonomous universities almost always win because the MOE Tuition Grant cuts a citizen's fee to a fraction of the true cost. A private or overseas-partner bachelor's (SIM, JCU, Curtin, Kaplan) gets no grant and commonly costs S$25,000 to S$60,000-plus, with no access to government bursaries or the HESL. The private route can still make sense for a specific course, an accelerated timeline, or when you have no autonomous-university offer, but go in knowing you are paying close to the full price.
This is general financial information for Singapore, not personal financial advice. Figures change — verify current rates against the official sources above before acting. See our full disclaimer.