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The story
As free tuition for public high schools expands, a survey has found that 27% of first-year high schoolers said they “wanted to attend a private school but couldn’t choose one.” Even though tuition itself is now free, the “school enrollment fees” that private schools set independently aren’t covered by the program — in some cases the survey found these fees roughly doubled to an average of about ¥140,000, with 80% of families also covering school supply costs out of pocket. Professor Yuji Shirakawa of Chiba University suggests that the expansion of public subsidies for tuition may itself be one reason private schools raised their other fees. On 5ch, the thread split between those saying “free tuition means more families can afford private school” and critics arguing “in the end, private schools are just raising prices and pocketing the difference” — with the debate spreading to whether Osaka’s funding model is really the right approach.
Even with free tuition… private high schools’ “school enrollment fees” have roughly doubled
Professor Yuji Shirakawa (educational sociology) of Chiba University, speaking at the press conference, noted that “the expansion of public subsidies for tuition may have led private high schools to raise their other fees.”
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Source: ben54.jp / Original article here
What people said
What's the point of that gap then?
If that's the case, just scrap entrance exams altogether
Nah, it's the opposite
Looks more like the government wants to get rid of public schools, so it's propping up private ones instead
That way, even if costs go up, the government doesn't take the blame
Seems like some people have the wrong idea, but this subsidy basically pays the salaries of "amakudari" board members (retired bureaucrats parachuted into cushy private-school posts) — it's not really a subsidy for free education.
What's the point of public schools even existing then
Private schools exist for people who can't get into public school.
Even in the countryside it depends on the area
Some places don't have any decent private schools, so public ends up ranking above private by default
Other places it's the reverse, private > public
It's the opposite. In rural areas, private schools were originally the fallback for kids who failed to get into public school
Tuition's free now, so what's the problem
Expecting absolutely everything to be free is the weird part, isn't it
You're right that expecting everything free is weird
Which is exactly why they shouldn't have made private school free in the first place
That's exactly why it's cheaper for public funds if kids go private. The news has covered this plenty of times already
Take Osaka as an example: sending one kid to public school costs about ¥1.08 million a year. But if they go private, the cap is ¥630,000
The schools struggling most are the private ones whose tuition runs above ¥630,000, since they have to absorb the rest themselves
If that's the case, Ishin (the Osaka-based Japan Innovation Party that pushed this policy) should just cover the difference themselves
That's just creating inequality in educational opportunity
Public schools exist precisely so this doesn't happen, but if money pressures push people toward private school anyway, public education loses its whole point
And if everyone ends up going private, then money for cram schools and prep schools outside of regular school becomes necessary too, which just creates a new gap there
It's a temporary win for some people during the transition, but in the end it just takes opportunity away from poorer families
In our case, my older kid is good at studying so they got into a public school with roughly a 70 hensa (academic ranking score). No uniform required either, so the initial cost was only ¥5,500 lol
My younger kid isn't great at studying, so I'm planning to send them to a private high school aiming for a "designated-school recommendation" (a guaranteed university slot reserved for certain high schools)
Does that answer it?
I see, thanks
Makes sense that top-tier public schools have solid exam prep covered already
So depending on academic ability, private can actually be the better fit
Yeah. Private schools really do have a lot of designated-school recommendation slots
Even kids who'd fail a general entrance exam can land one if they do well on in-school tests or get certifications like Eiken/Kanken, so it's popular for that reason
Public schools don't work that way though — everyone gets into university purely on their own merit
Lol at that last line
Getting into university on your own merit is supposed to be the default though
Is that right?
I had the impression that traditional public schools have the advantage for designated-school recommendations
Setting aside affiliated schools of private universities, do mid-tier private schools really have a lot of these recommendation slots these days?
They score nearly 100 on tests but only get a 4 (out of 5) for it
I want them to get into the top school nearby but it's probably not happening
Looks like private school is the only option, which is depressing
There's a chance it could be a developmental thing, so you'd better start teaching them now that things besides studying matter too
I feel like I've been strict about it all along
In elementary school the teachers used to notify parents about homework and assignments so I could still catch it, but once they hit junior high I can't keep track anymore, it's just not possible
Even stuff like gym class worksheets — they'll just say "I figured I didn't need to turn that in" on their own
I thought getting burned by their grades might make them realize it, but they don't seem to care at all
That's not good. Rather than being strict, it's better to patiently and repeatedly explain the downsides of staying this way
Putting off worksheets and assignments is a classic habit of people who can't get things done at work
You should have them handle their own stuff and chores too
Saying "everyone goes private" is an extreme way to put it, but for example in our case, free tuition means we can (eventually) put our younger kid into a private school. Without free tuition, there's no way a middle-class family like us could afford private school
If it were really just private schools raking it in, they wouldn't be having a huge fight with Ishin…
"Huge fight"?? Are they literally throwing punches?
If paying more in tuition actually raised academic performance, fine, but
this is just going to accelerate the declining birth rate even more
That's specifically about Osaka before this system started, and only the private schools tied into that system
There was friction because all sorts of conditions and restrictions were attached
But since other prefectures rolled out free tuition in a sloppier way, it didn't play out the same there
The number and quality of designated-school recommendation slots
Better facilities and English conversation programs
Teacher quality
Stuff like that, I guess. At the school we're aiming for, students actually rate the teachers (not sure how common that is). Apparently if a teacher scores badly for several years running, they get coaching intervention, or instructors just don't get their contracts renewed
In the cities, the top high schools tend to be private, after all
Though these days the best private schools are almost all integrated middle-and-high-school programs, so you can't really get in starting from high school anymore
I didn't think too hard about it and just put my kid in a private school, and then they brought a friend home for a sleepover
Turned out the friend's parent was a former pro baseball player — I was like "no way"
Back in the day, about all there was were child allowances and dependent tax deductions, and everyone still managed to get through high school fine
Compared to back then, parents today get way more support and benefits, and yet it's still "we don't have the money"
Poor families with lots of kids
Rich families with one kid
The gap just keeps widening
You'd laugh if you heard what households actually have in savings these days
Completely different from 20 years ago
No wonder it's turned out like this
I think Osaka's still managing to pull it off, but that doesn't mean it'll work the same way in rural areas too. I agree with that point
Osaka in particular has seen tuition hikes get out of hand
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HRhbxqYaoAAFfen.jpg
The school we're aiming for is right there lol
You can tell just from the price
Background and key points of this discussion
What this survey reveals is that making tuition “free” doesn’t necessarily translate into lower education costs overall. Under the program, only tuition itself is covered — “school enrollment fees,” which include things like entrance fees and facility maintenance charges, fall outside the scope of the subsidy. That means if private schools raise these other fees, the real burden on families may stay the same or even increase. The point raised by Professor Yuji Shirakawa of Chiba University highlights exactly this structural issue. The thread also referenced the free-tuition model Osaka Prefecture pioneered (a system that sets different subsidy caps for public versus private schools), with some noting that other prefectures adopting similar systems won’t necessarily see the same results. A common misunderstanding among readers is assuming that the word “free” means total education costs drop to essentially zero. In reality, enrollment fees, school supplies, commuting costs, and more remain the family’s responsibility — and this survey put numbers to just how hidden those costs can be.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “Even with free high school tuition, 27% of first-year students say they “couldn’t choose private school” — hidden education costs revealed as “80% pay school supplies out of pocket” and “enrollment fees double to ¥140,000”“.
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