Japan Press Weekly

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2024 November 27 - December 3 [POLITICS]

JCP urges gov’ to provide emergency grants to universities to cancel tuition hikes

Japanese Communist Party Executive Committee Chair Tamura Tomoko on November 27 demanded that the Education Ministry take urgent budgetary measures so that universities do not have to raise their tuition fees.

The JCP will call on other parties to cooperate in enacting government emergency measures to stop the continuance of tuition hikes, according to Tamura.

JCP Dietmembers Motomura Nobuko and Horikawa Akiko (House of Representatives), Kira Yoshiko, Yamazoe Taku, and Nihi Sohei (House of Councilors) echoed and endorsed Tamura’s request.

The request calls on the government to provide emergency subsidies of 100 billion yen to national, public, and private universities to put a stop to increases in tuition fees for the next fiscal year and to encourage them to lower their tuition fees. It also calls for the gradual elimination of tuition for higher education.

Tamura pointed out that tuition fees are continuing to increase at national and private universities one after another, including the University of Tokyo which will raise tuition by 107,000 yen for undergraduate enrollment next year.

She argued that politics, not universities, is responsible for the continuance of tuition hikes.

Tamura said that the government cut subsidies for national universities’ operating expenses by 160 billion yen over the past 20 years, and that the subsidies for private universities’ ordinary expenses remain inadequate, adding that these are the reasons why many university authorities have no choice but to raise their tuition fees. She then stressed the need to increase the overall education budget.