Government Funding Versus Private Funding in Japanese Universities

Abstract

Some modern societies seem to advocate increased private responsibility for higher education. This article examines the financial structure of higher education in Japan and expresses a note of caution regarding recent trends. The quantitative expansion of higher education in Japan has been remarkable. However, public financing by the government has not adjusted properly to the expansion. Private institutions, in principle self‐supporting, non‐profit organisations, enrol about 75% of the total number of students, and their share of tuition fees amounts to about 70% of their total revenue. Even students at national institutions must pay tuition fees. So the financial burden of tuition fees has fallen very heavily on family budgets. The financial structure of higher education in Japan must be considered while taking into account not only privatisation, which is a common trend in most European countries, but also public funding, which means an increase in government financing for higher education institutions in order to reduce the fiscal burden on family budgets.