An agreement reached on Oct. 29 by the Liberal Democratic Party, Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party) and Komeito, foreign nationals whose status of residence is “student” will be excluded from the program from fiscal 2026.
“We need to prioritize our own citizens first,” said Masahiko Shibayama, a former education minister from the LDP, noting that the expansion of the high school tuition-free program scheduled for fiscal 2026 is “extremely generous.”
Ed – Too generous for non-Japaneee, it seems. They will however be providing 'assistance' to international students under a separate framework from the perspective of securing globally competitive talent.
by Sumobob99
16 comments
The revisions seem to be primarily focused on exchange/international students, not residents. Of course won’t know what happens until the details are released, but it seems perfectly reasonable that exchange students be charged for their education.
[removed]
This doesn’t seem super crazy to me. High schoolers who are here with their parents should not be under their own status (e.g. “student”) anyways, so this seems to target people who come here for an exchange year. I doubt this is going to put too much money into the state’s pockets, but oh well.
This certainly seems reasonable, I was on MEXT years ago and one japanese labmate voiced his concern like why do foreign students have it easy with getting all these funding when he needs to do part time and all just so he can pursue his grad studies. I didnt have much answer aside from “Im sorry but if you were given an opportunity to go abroad fully funded would you also go” to shift the perspective that its not me but the governments policy of handing out these scholarships (we are very good friends until now btw. His feelings are certainly valid, I didnt know that it was really a hard thing for citizens themselves to get financially supported and I share their sentiments.
Having gone to high school here, rather than getting it cheaper I think should have gotten paid by how much I helped in their English classes. Their actual teacher was just making their English worse.
“From fiscal 2026, the maximum annual grant for full-time students at private schools will be raised from the current 396,000 yen to 457,000 yen, with income testing also removed.”
So for foreign permanent residents that send their kids who are Japanese nationals to international schools like American school, they can get up to 457,000yen grant for the kid irrespective of how much they earn?
If so, that sounds like a foreigner win to me.
Were there really that many high school exchange students to begin with?
It seems like they scrolled all the way down to the bottom of the list of expenses to find one that can assign blame to foreigners and also be inconsequential to cut.
After having done that, the next time they need to give red meat to their xenophobic base they will necessarily have to choose something more controversial, because they have already made this easy cut.
If they want to help the financial situation of citizens, how about doing something about rice prices? My town doesn’t even have cheaper California rice as an option.
Another day, another reminder of Japan’s rampant xenophobia.
Aren’t the most international students who attend to highschool on their own “student” visa are coming on some scholarships or exchange programs, anyway?
I do not find unreasonable that random people coming from some other country do not get an automatic free school. Most kids of international couples are on different visa, they seem to be not effected.
Makes sense
Citizens first should always be the way
This is pretty normal in most places, nothing crazy to see here, move along now.
What charging exchange students will lead to is mass terminations of exchange agreements and less student mobility. Exchange agreements are usually based on a mutual waiver of fees, meaning the Japanese kids going abroad on exchange will not pay anything either.
That… just makes sense. Well done Japan
i thought exchange students were an agreement between schools or university. at least in my birth country you can not pick any random school in the world and say “i want to study here”.
each university had partner universities in specific countries and got partial or full tuition excemption because it was recyprocal between both school, or part of an agreement. never goverments or tax money get involved.
is this a japanese unique program? I can only think of MEXT grants, is it referring to those?
As far as I know most foreign students can’t apply for most student aid programs in the US, so I don’t know why this Japan policy is even controversial.
Comments are closed.