Another obstacle to promoting the acceptance of foreign students is the high cost of living in Japan. To encourage more students to come to Japan to study, it is imperative that something be done to lighten the economic burden on self-financed students through the provision of scholarships that will permit students to concentrate exclusively on their studies. Since fiscal 1978, MEXT has offered study grants to self-financed, economically disadvantaged students with excellent academic records. Even so, there are still many foreign students who are forced to use up valuable study time working part-time in an effort to make ends meet. It has been widely lauded as an effective means of smoothing the way for foreign students who are just beginning their studies in Japan.
Scholarships play a central role in efforts to support foreign students.
To enhance this economic support, it is necessary for universities, regional public corporations, and other organizations in both the public and private sectors to join with the national government to supply the needed funds. One more important element that is needed in order to build a foreign student system that is open to the world is to remove obstacles that prevent students from coming to Japan to study. One of those obstacles is the student selection process. Currently, when a prospective foreign student applies for admission to a Japanese university, portions of either the Grade-1 Japanese Language Proficiency Test, or the General Examination for Foreign Students are commonly used as part of the screening process. However, many problems have been identified with regard to the number of times and locations where the tests are administered, as well as test content.