The Unit Cost of Higher Education in Japan and the U. S.

Abstract

This paper examines the longitudinal trend of the unit cost (defined as the current expenditure divided by the number of students) in higher education in Japan and the U. S. The unit cost of American higher education has been relatively constant in both public and private institutions over the past two decades. In Japan, the unit cost of private universities has steadily risen since 1960, while that of national universities has been constant since the middle of the 1970s.