FACTOID: Japan boasts a HE continuance rate over 70%

It depends of course on how you define higher education. Continuance to two- and four-year institutions is now over 50%, and the institutions hope it will continue to grow to at least 60% because the size of senior high cohorts has been going down for the last 15 years. Another factor to consider is that, once students are admitted to universities and colleges, the vast majority graduate. There is very little academic pressure put on them to prove their worth in their first two years, unlike non-elite institutions in the US (and the vast majority of institutions in the US are NON-ELITE general education boot camps).

See:

http://www.mext.go.jp/english/koutou/001/001.htm

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