Take regularly: Japan��s universities turn to hospitals for financial pain relief

Japan��s universities turn to hospitals for financial pain relief

<��Ƶ class="standfirst">This graph shows that Japan��s top-ranked universities now rely on their hospitals for about 40 per cent of their income as they struggle with deep cuts in government spending.

January 5, 2017

David Matthews

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Japan��s universities turn to hospitals for financial pain relief (5 January 2017)

Source: Center for National University Finance and Management (2001) and MEXT (2015) On the Actual Situation of National University Corporations

Note: Public expenditure includes operating budget, competitive research grants and others

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Since 2004, when national universities �C which are more highly ranked than Japan��s private universities �C were incorporated to make them more autonomous, public funding has been cut by about 1 per cent a year, said Futao Huang, a professor at the Research Institute for Higher Education at Hiroshima University.

Needing new sources of funds and able to raise tuition fees by only a limited amount, income from their hospitals has proved the ��best and quickest way�� to boost income, he said.

��For example, they have asked patients to do more medical examinations or to come to receive medical treatment more frequently than before to generate more income,�� Professor Huang said.

Hospital income now accounts for almost as much as public allocations, according to these figures �C taken from a new analysis paper by Professor Huang, ��Changes and challenges to higher education financing in Japan��.

david.matthews@tesglobal.com