奨学金
しょうがくきん · shougakukin · JLPT N3 · noun
scholarship
🎓💰 奨学金 = encourage (奨) + study (学) + money (金)
Literally encourage-study money: funds given to push a student onward. 学 is the same gaku as in 学生 (student) and 大学 (university), and 金 (kin) is money or gold, as in 料金 (fee). Shou-gaku-kin = money that encourages learning.
学 — hands 𦥑 + roof 冖 + child 子
Originally 學, depicting two hands manipulating something (often interpreted as counting rods or the 爻 trigram symbols) under a roof, with a child 子 below — a child learning under instruction. The simplified form 学 replaces the top with a stylized 龸. Core meaning has always been 'to study, learn'.
金 — roof 亼 + two dots (metal nuggets) + earth 土
Originally a pictograph of metal nuggets buried in the earth beneath a covering, with the two dots representing pieces of ore. It first meant 'metal' broadly, then narrowed to 'gold' as the most precious metal, and by extension 'money'.