U.S. alarmed by falling Japanese enrollments at universities

Monday 27th December, 04:51 AM JST

TOKYO —

The U.S. government is taking steps to encourage more Japanese students to study at U.S. universities out of concern that the recent sharp drop in Japanese enrollments might result in weakening bilateral relations over the long run.

The number of Japanese students who entered U.S. universities in fall last year dropped 15% from a year earlier to around 24,800, a sharp fall from around 47,000 in 2001, according to the U.S. Institute of International Education.

Japan placed sixth on the nationality list of students studying in the United States last year, while China, listed top, increased enrollments by around 30 percent to some 127,600. India ranked second followed by South Korea.

Declines in Japanese enrollments are blamed on an economic slowdown following the collapse of the bubble economy in the 1990s and the growing tendency among Japanese youth to prefer studying domestically to going abroad.

In order to stem the ongoing trend that Tokyo and Washington fear might lead to atrophying of ties between the two nations, Prime Minister Naoto Kan and President Barack Obama agreed in their talks in November to step up measures to broaden contacts between Japanese and Americans. They also confirmed that they should make use of the Japanese government’s program for inviting Americans to teach English at Japanese schools.

The U.S. Embassy in Japan is also weighing in to get more Japanese to study at U.S. schools, sponsoring an English speech contest by Japanese high school students in November in Tokyo.