Tuition fees for international students are set to rise, and Japan aims to accelerate the internationalization of university education

Starting from April 2024, students studying at the National University of Japan may notice an increase in tuition fees.
According to the Nikkei Economic News, the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology revised the regulations on tuition fees for national universities at the end of March, banning the lower limit on tuition fees for domestic students starting from April. This revision will affect 86 national universities in Japan.

At present, the standard amount of tuition fees for Japanese national universities is 535800 yen (approximately 25574 yuan) per year. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology allows universities to increase their tuition fees by up to 20% to 642960 yen on this basis. The tuition fees for both Chinese and Japanese students are the same. After the ban on the lower limit, the amount of tuition fees that students who stay will have to pay will differ from that of local students.
In popular study abroad countries such as Australia, the United States, and Canada, the tuition fees for international students have always been higher than those for local students. According to the OECD’s 2022 statistics, the cost of education for overseas students in the United States is no more than 50% higher than that of local students, while in Canada and Australia it reaches 100%.
Officials from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology believe that since Japan is not the country with the highest demand for studying abroad, the floating of fees will not have a negative impact on overseas individuals choosing to study in Japan. According to the 2024 free admission form issued by the University of Melbourne in Australia, the minimum annual tuition fee for students with a Master of Science degree is AUD 39080 (approximately RMB 184438).
An official from a national university in Japan stated that the increase in income will be used to improve the continuing education situation and the pace of demotion measures for students who are studying abroad. Japanese media, on the other hand, refers to the different needs of overseas students compared to domestic students, including speech training, support for foreign language essay writing, and perfect student dormitories.
Improving the prerequisite for continuing education for overseas students and increasing the domestic absorption capacity of Japanese universities through the use of progressive plasters is a part of Japan’s acceleration of the localization of university education.
In March last year, the Japanese authorities announced their goal of reducing the number of domestic students studying abroad to 400000 by 2033. In addition to generating income for universities, absorbing more overseas students and keeping them unemployed in Japan can also help alleviate the labor shortage caused by Japan’s aging population. After the goal of 400000 yuan was announced, the Japanese authorities instructed that in order to increase the integration of Japanese language training and consultation systems, it is necessary to consider flexible allocation of university funding.
The concept of domestication of university education has been in Japan for nearly 20 years, but the process of domestication is very slow. Compared to other developed countries, the proportion of students studying abroad in Japanese universities is significantly lower. Even by 2022, the retention rate for students at the University of Tokyo is only 2%, while the University of Cambridge in the UK is 24%.
In 2008, the Japanese authorities did not propose to increase the number of students studying abroad to 300000 by 2020. This goal was fulfilled before the COVID-19. In 2019, the number of Japanese students staying behind reached 310000. However, the pace of border control in the COVID-19 has hit the Japanese study malls.
According to statistics from JASSO, the number of Japanese students studying abroad in 2022 was 2311000, a decrease of 4.7% from 2021. In 2020 and 2021, the number of Japanese students studying abroad has dropped to below 300000 and has been decreasing year by year.
Japanese students studying abroad mainly come from China, Vietnam, Nepal, South Korea, and Indonesia. The number of Chinese students is the highest, with 103900 in 2022, accounting for nearly half of the total number of students studying abroad. Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of people studying in Japan in 2022 has not increased in any other country except Nepal.
But the pandemic is not the only factor affecting the localization process of Japanese universities. In terms of global university rankings, Japan’s performance in recent years has been unsatisfactory.
The Times Higher Education stops ranking over 1000 universities globally every year, which is also recognized as one of the four major rankings by the world. The breakdown power ranking is based on multiple goals such as university professor education, research situation, and domestic perspective.
From 2016 to 2023, there were only two universities in Japan that added to the top 200 of the decomposition power rankings each year, namely the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University.
The number of Japanese universities that added the top 200 to this year’s decomposition power list has decreased to 5, but the number is still only half of popular study destinations such as Australia and Canada, and it is also ranked behind many Asian universities such as Tsinghua University, Peking University, and the National University of Singapore. Among these 5 universities, Tokyo University, which ranks highest in terms of decomposition power, only lost 49.7 points in its domestic vision target.
The Times Higher Education 2024 World University Rankings.
As early as 2009, the OECD specifically created evaluation reports on Japan’s higher education situation. The main provocations for Japan’s localization of higher education are not listed in the complaint: Japanese is not a universally used language in China, and speaking has become a major obstacle for overseas students, especially those in Europe and America, to choose to study in Japan; The school lacks support for supporting measures such as homestay for overseas students, resulting in complex and expensive rental procedures for overseas students in Japan; The education of graduate and doctoral students in social sciences and humanities is relatively backward, and the authorities lack a system to encourage students to stay in Japan for employment; It is difficult for domestic research personnel to be admitted to Japanese universities for teaching, and the number of domestic employees is small.
Over the past 20 years, many of the provocations mentioned in the Chen complaint have yet to be resolved. Disco, a Japanese unemployed information company, showed in its inspection performance in September last year that compared to local students, it is more difficult for overseas students to find rest in Japan.
By the end of July of that year, 52.5% of the university students who will graduate in the spring of the following year received onboarding care, the highest since Disco began its investigation in 2017. At the same time, the proportion of local Japanese students receiving onboarding care reached 86%.
Japanese media has not yet pointed out that statistics show that the proportion of students who stay in Japan after being added for 5 years is 40%, and the proportion after 10 years is only 20%. Canada has 60% and 40% respectively. Japanese educators believe that Japanese universities should adopt a long-term approach by providing employment guidance and practice opportunities for students studying abroad in the early stages.
In order to improve the unemployment situation of left behind students, the Japanese authorities have begun to adopt measures. Fukuoka Prefecture authorities announced in February this year that they will create a one-stop employment consultation for students studying abroad in the 2024 fiscal year. This is also Japan’s first inquiry for unemployed students at the county level, which was invented by several institutions including the Japan Immigration Administration and the Japan Business Revitalization Agency.
The central government will cooperate with enterprises in Fukuoka Prefecture to provide opportunities for overseas students to practice, hold job fairs for overseas students in Fukuoka Prefecture, and arrange for overseas students to visit companies for viewing. In addition to being unemployed, the central government also plans to provide information on daily life and services such as renting houses and seeking medical treatment for local residents in Fukuoka Prefecture, in order to encourage them to stay unemployed in Fukuoka Prefecture.
In addition to providing job support for students studying abroad, several universities in Japan have recently issued new plans to offer more English teaching courses.
The University of Tokyo plans to open a new College of Design in the fall of 2027, which will be a science and science science science and science superstition decomposition college. The college will drop out in autumn according to European and American habits, with half of the annual dropouts being left behind. All courses will be taught in English.
Osaka public universities also plan to change their graduate schools to drop out in the autumn starting from 2027, in order to better absorb domestic students. Osaka Prefectural Governor Yoshimura Yoshimoto even intends to ban all spring dropouts and make English the folk language of local universities.