Towards Universal Access Amid Demographic Decline: High Participation Higher Education in Japan

This chapter provides a detailed and extensive assessment of Japan’s high participation system (HPS) of higher education, in historical perspective, and reflects on the changes in governance, functional differentiation, diversification between institutions in the form of vertical stratification, and the challenges for social equality and equity. The country case largely complies with the HPS propositions, with some national variations. The role of the state has been particularly important in shaping system differentiation; it has fostered functional diversification among universities and other post-secondary institutions, and has also concentrated public investment in selected universities. Stratification is enhanced by neo-liberal competition policy and the official positioning of the top universities as responding to globalization. The deliberate pursuit of functional diversification has modified the secular tendency to reduced diversity of institutional type, but not eliminated it. A shrinking population and economy have created more challenges for designing a sustainable future vision of higher education.