A Comparative Study in Public Subsidies to Higher Education in Japan and the US

Research Project

Project/Area Number	06610258
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	Educaion
Research Institution	Sugiyama Jogakuen University
Principal Investigator	MARUYAMA Fumihiro Sugiyama Jogakuen University, School of Human Sciences, Associate Professor, 人間関係学部, 助教授 (60144888)
Project Period (FY)	1994 – 1996
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 1996)
Budget Amount *help	¥1,600,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,600,000) Fiscal Year 1996: ¥400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥400,000) Fiscal Year 1995: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000) Fiscal Year 1994: ¥700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥700,000)
Keywords	Public Subsidies / Higher Education / 私立大学 / アメリカ高等教育 / 教育政策 / 所得再分配 / 租税負担率 / 高等教育進学率 / 教育と経済成長
Research Abstract	Public subsidies to higher education are designed to help to expand the private demand to higher education and to achieve equal opportunity for it. This is usually done by subsidizing institutions which are supposed to decrease tuition fees and to increase students from less affluent families. But this lower tuition policy has been criticized from the fact that higher education institutions have not attracted students from low income families. Rather lower tuition policy consequently provides higher education service to affluent students with low cost. This is criticized by reproducing the inequality that the poorer provides higher education to the richer. Thus it is often proposed that individual subsidy by such as scholarship is preferred to institutional subsidy which often neglects students' economic needs. This paper analyzes the distributional effects of higher education subsidies in Japan. Both the distribution of higher education subsidies received by income groups and the distribution of taxs paid by income groups are examined. Using empirical data, the enrollment rates of five different income groups are compared to the tax burden of equivalent groups. The result showsthat the enrollment rates of five different income groups are approximately proportional to the tax burden of five grops though there are small exceptions.