Preface
This report is based on presentations to the international conference of March 2015 held
jointly by the Center for Research and Development of Higher Education, The Universityof Tokyo and the Japan Student Services Organization. Four scholars and one
commentator were invited to the conference. Each gave a presentation on student financial
assistance in their country and provided ample lessons for the reform of student financial
assistance in Japan.
I will explain the background to the conference, in particular its academic andpolitical context in the introduction. Before that, however, I would like to give readerssome background information on the research activities for the conference.
“The Task Force of the Reform for Student Financial Aid Policies,” chaired by Prof.
Masayuki Kobayashi from the University of Tokyo, started in 2005 with support from amajor grant from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology(MEXT), Japan. The major mission of this task force consisted of two parts: to identify andsurvey the present status of student financial assistance policies in major countries inrelation to higher education and government reform, and to provide the ministry and thepublic with meaningful insights and research findings on these policies and practice, inorder to contribute to future policy formation and the development of higher education inJapan.
Japan’s student financial assistance scheme has been under criticism from thegovernment and various stakeholders as the social and economic environment aroundhigher education has undergone significant changes. How do we maintain and improve thesystem in a period of fiscal stringency not only maintaning accessibility to higher
education but also increasing higher education’s efficiency and effectiveness? Furthermore,
how do we enrich the quality of higher learning in response to the current context of higher
education reforms? We have been urged to prepare an appropriate response to these needs.
This challenge requires careful examination from economic, sociological and political
viewpoints.
To pursue these objectives, the Task Force team has been doing research on studentifinancial aid schemes using two methods. One is a comparative study of financial aid
schemes in various countries, especially Australia, China, Germany, Korea, Sweden, theUnited Kingdom (England), and the United Sates. The other method is a statistical analysisof students, parents and higher education institutions. The team has presented four majorreports to the Ministry of Education that are available to the public. One of them is“Worldwide Perspectives of Student Financial Assistance Policies: Searching Relevance toFuture Policy Reform for Japanese Higher Education” (2008)(http://www.he.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/home/publication-2/) in English.

This isa reportof an international conference held in 2007.
Also, the Japan Student Services Organization (JASSO), the major and largest
student financial aid organization in Japan, has been doing comparative studies of various
countries, particularly Korea, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Some membersof the task force team have been participating in these studies, too. Thus, it is natural forthem to hold a conference to make the outcomes of these studies public while also
discussing these issues with guest speakers from abroad.
MEXT and JASSO have already added the so-called “Income Contingent LoanRepayment Scheme” to the interest-free loan of JASSO since 2012. However, this scheme
is very limited and imperfect. Everyone agrees that we need to improve this scheme. Thisis the most important item on the policy agenda at present, and the committee on this issue,led by Prof. Masayuki Kobayashi, has been presenting proposals on reform since
September 2015. The team is now embarking on obtaining some policy options and robust
evidence for reform of the scheme.
The central theme of this report, “Financial Assistance Policy” should be interpreted
broadly as “cost-sharing for higher education” within the complex system of higher
education finance. This “cost sharing” might be considered an inevitable consequence ofcommon mega-trends in higher education; stringent public finance, the massification ofhighereducation,societal,demographicandeconomic

structuralchange,

thediversification of students, and a crisis regarding equality in educational opportunity.
In this report, I will explain the background to the reform and make comparisonswith some of the countries to be mentioned in the introduction. The four speakers at theconference wrote their country reports after the discussion on their presentations, a panelii

discussion, and a workshop. These country papers will provide both lessons for the reformof student financial assistance in Japan and material with we can make useful comparisons
between countries. After the comments on the country reports, I will sum up these lessons
and provide some policy implications for the reform of student financial assistance not
only in Japan but also in other countries.

March 7, 2016

Masayuki Kobayashi
Professor, Ph. D
Center for Research and Development of Higher Education
The University of Tokyoiii