by Robert Moorehead

Amid debates over the cost of higher education and the struggle to keep the door open to under-represented groups, this post reminds of the need to make failure an easier, less expensive option. In Japan, the costs of failure are high. Students are prepared to march down a narrow path of getting into the right high school and then the right university, followed by getting a job at a major corporation. Veer off that path and you might find yourself shut out completely. Such a system goes beyond discouraging risk-taking to making taking risks nearly fatal. Tressie McMillan Cottom writes “One of the rarely discussed consequences of the high cost of college for some students is that debt can effectively calcify a system whose flexibility is a strength.” Such calcification seem to have hit Japanese institutions decades ago, such that students get rewarded for feeding the process. What does this portend for those of non-Japanese or mixed ancestry? When students and job candidates are measured for their Japanese calcium content and not their unique contributions, how much harder is it for them to gain a foothold in Japanese society?