“Make Japan Great Again” #4_History

A Philanthropic Scholarship Program and Transnational Youths’ Yaritaikoto for “Social Good”

20 min readMay 30, 2022

This is an excerpt from my 81-page anthropology thesis titled “‘Make Japan Great Again’: An Emerging Class of Transnational Youths and Their Yaritaikoto for ‘Social Good’.”

<Table of Contents>

4. Brief History of Japanese Political Economy

In order to contextualize my findings, this chapter explains the modern history of Japan, centering the national economy, secondary education, and the concept of yaritaikoto (what one wants to do). In doing so, I briefly introduce the social backgrounds in which Tadashi Yanai and his company, Fast Retailing, developed. To illustrate how these topics intertwine with each other at each historical phase, I organized this chapter chronologically rather than thematically. Additionally, I intentionally attended to Yanai’s subjective observations about Japan — instead of academic archives — because his views on Japanese society imply why he decided to structure the Scholarship in particular manners. In what follows, I will first describe Japan’s post-WWII economic boom between the 1950s and the early 90s. Second, I will highlight the sudden economic crash starting in 1991 and how the recession transformed the popular use of yaritaikoto in education and hiring practices. The third section focuses on the rise of meritocracy in Japan as a result of the neoliberal education reform throughout the 2000s and the early 2010s. Fourth, I will discuss the recent “study-abroad boom,” stemming from elite adults’ and youths’ responses to the prolonged stagnation in Japan. The final section will explore how the Yanai Tadashi Scholarship itself has evolved since its launch in 2016.

4–1. 1950s — 1990: Post-War Economic Boom

According to Yanai’s (2013) personal anecdote, Japan had “literally nothing” when he was born in 1949, and “Japanese people hoped to become wealthier by any means.” In his childhood, he narrates, Japanese youths “admired American lifestyles where people enjoy mansions filled with the latest home appliances, neon signs shining in the streets, and big cars like Cadillacs and Chevrolets driving on the highways” (Yanai 2013). By describing the American upper-middle class lifestyle, Yanai emphasizes Japanese people’s aspiration toward upward mobility. His positive views about the U.S. relate to his Foundation’s website repeating the phrase “global perspectives,” which only accept higher education in the United States and the United Kingdom. By actively subscribing to a Western-centric worldview, Yanai treats those two countries as the only places worthy for Japanese students to learn from. Stated in his autobiography, the 1940s and the early 50s marked a period of rapid reconstruction from the war damage.

Between the 1950s and the early 70s, Japan’s conservative governments successfully created a rapidly growing economy with relatively fair income distribution (Itoh 2014, 178). After the Plaza Accord in 1985 — an agreement among the U.S., the U.K., Germany, France, and Japan to control exchange rates by depreciating the U.S. dollar relative to Japanese yen (Chen 2021) — Japan experienced an unprecedented degree of sudden economic growth (Itoh 2014, 178). As many corporations expanded their employment, the economic boom introduced affluent social practices that were once inaccessible to common people. Such practices included buying second or third homes and hosting corporation-wide international trips for employees’ vacations. The country’s euphoric and optimistic mood also promoted speculative investments in stocks and real estate both nationally and internationally.

During the sudden rise in the domestic economy, Yanai opened his first Uniqlo store in Hiroshima in 1984 (Fast Retailing n.d.). Around this period, major companies extended their businesses by outsourcing cheap manual labor from neighboring Asian nations (Itoh 2014). For instance, in the apparel industry, GAP first adopted this business model in 1987, soon followed by Fast Retailing (Sugiura 2022). Hence, the world’s most valuable clothing brand once started as a local apparel shop during the unparalleled economic boom.

Despite this increasing financialization in Japan, the Nakasone Cabinet did not actively promote unregulated free-market capitalism nor individual competition, both of which are prominent in today’s discussion about neoliberalism. Instead, the national government emphasized what Japanese social scientists describe as “soft individualism,” “peaceful coexistence,” and “separation” between the private and public spheres (Kuroda 2007: 87). The ever-persistent value of collectivism reflects employees’ absolute loyalty towards their corporations. Without a strong sense of individualism, many worked extremely long hours; the cases of karoshi — death from overwork — were more common than today (Shigeyuki, 2018). Under such harsh working conditions, no corporation seriously considered their employees’ yaritaikoto, or intrinsic motivation, toward their jobs.

4–2. 1991–2000s: The Collapse of the “Bubble Economy”

While few Japanese citizens questioned the sustainability of their politically-manipulated financial boom, the oil price shock of 1990 and the Gulf War abruptly flipped Japan’s economic situation (Itoh 2014). With government bonds skyrocketing, all commercial activities plummeted, necessitating a rapid restructuring of domestic industries. Numbers of small and medium enterprises had no choice but to lay off their laborers, especially uneducated youths. As a consequence, the number of precarious part-time workers rose after the mid 90s.

In an effort to reform the unprecedented deflation, the Koizumi Cabinet announced the “Structural Reform without Sanctuary” (聖域なき構造改革) as the most pressing priority in 2001 (International Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d.). The new policies included 1) disposal of poorly performing loans, 2) deregulation of private industries to facilitate job creation, 3) fiscal reform to organize a less expensive government. Prime Minister Koizumi decisively reduced public spending, exemplified by his well-known privatization of the postal service (郵政民営化) and the gradual reduction of social security expenditures, dismissing backlash from the Diet members and civil servants. Although the Japanese economy slightly recovered from 2004, reflecting the general trend in the global market, the financial crisis of 2008 launched it into another period of recession. In an attempt to combat persisting deflation, the conservative Prime Minister Abe announced his economic reform — known as Abenomics — which included “bold monetary policy, flexible fiscal policy and a growth strategy that encourages private investment” (Kenton 2021). While his neoliberal stimulus plans contributed to a minor improvement in youth unemployment, the overall trend of the persisting recession and deflation remained (Itoh 2014).

Despite the national recession, Fast Retailing rapidly grew its apparel business, both domestically and internationally. The number of Uniqlo stores in Japan, which was only around 50 in 1992, quadrupled within four years. Because the stagnated economy had encouraged frugal consumption, many Japanese people welcomed Uniqlo’s clothes that were low-cost yet high-quality. For example, Uniqlo’s first $15 fleece sold almost two million pieces in the winter of 1998 alone (Wikipedia 2022b). In 2000, Fast Retailing achieved sales of 228.9 billion yen (i.e. $1.8 billion), operating income of 60.6 billion yen (i.e. $472 million), and an operating margin of 26% — an astounding level for the apparel industry (Sugiura 2022). This success has made Uniqlo one of Japan’s leading apparel brands, and Japanese consumers came to embrace Uniqlo’s production model to outsource garment workers abroad.

Encouraged by the domestic success, Fast Retailing expanded its first international Uniqlo store in London in 2002 and then in Shanghai in the following year. Three years after his decision to withdraw most stores in the U.K., Yanai opened a new Uniqlo flagship store in New York in order to revitalize the overseas businesses. Since then, Fast Retailing has aggressively expanded its global operations throughout the 2010s, which drove the company’s sales growth. Ironically, the frugal consumer culture developed during the economic stagnation turned out to be the perfect tailwind for Uniqlo’s business model of selling mass-produced cheap clothes.

As mentioned in the introduction, it is during this early recession that yaritaikoto became an important concept in job hunting. The previous generation worked for companies without personal drive besides life-long job security and age-based promotion, whereas the new generation was expected to demonstrate their yaritaikoto for their vocation. In fact, this general shift between collective loyalty toward corporations and individual yaritaikoto towards particular jobs is not specific to Japan nor this period. In the early 2010s, for instance, anthropologist Ilana Gershon studied hiring practices in the San Francisco Bay Area and found the prevalent emphasis on “Passionate Worker” (2017: 211). Since the 1990s, Gershon argues, American companies began encouraging employees to be passionate about work, rather than loyal (2017: 215). Similar to the recruiters she studied, Japanese corporations also came to appreciate clear yaritaikoto (i.e. passion) as one of the most important qualifications, sometimes even more than practical skills or relevant experiences. As the Japanese hiring practices became increasingly individualistic, the discourse of passion led white-collar workers to attribute their inability to find a fulfilling job to their lack of concrete yaritaikoto rather than structural issues in the precarious economy in Japan.

4–3. 2000s — 2010s: The Rise of Meritocracy through the Yutori Education

As the business world began prioritizing yaritaikoto, so did secondary education. In this section, I shift our attention from economy and labor market to secondary education, because the education reform after the economic collapse exemplified neoliberal policies founded upon reduction of public services. In the late 20th century, many Japanese people began critiquing the “cramming (tsumekomi) education” which focused on intense memorization of facts for acing college entrance exams. Due to such pedagogy, numerous issues emerged in Japan, such as low memory retention and high rates of students falling behind in the classroom. To address these problems, the Ministry of Education introduced a radically different public school curriculum that allowed more room (yutori) for students to think for themselves and nourish their individuality (Kawabata et al. 2011, 50). The Yutori Education officially began in 2002 under the second Nakasone Cabinet, which promoted the privatization of previously state-run enterprises. This newly proposed curriculum implemented reforms to loosen learning intensity, such as canceling classes on Saturdays, reducing the width and depth of course materials, and providing “integrated learning time” (Kawabata et al. 2011, 51; Sta Sta 2020; Mynavi Corporation 2021). Through the integrated learning, students initiated their own independent studies to explore yaritaikoto.

Despite its attempt to improve learning environments in public education, the Yutori Education reform caused negative consequences for Japanese youths in both the short-term and long-term. The first obvious outcome of the new curriculum was Japan’s continuous decline in PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) tests — the international academic achievement measurement for 15 year-olds conducted by the OECD. In 2000, Japan ranked first in mathematical literacy, second in scientific literacy, and eighth in reading comprehension (Funayama 2016). Then, in 2003 and 2006, the ranking went down consecutively. The decline in 2006 was particularly noticeable, with mathematical literacy dropping from 6th to 10th, scientific literacy from 2nd to 6th, and reading comprehension from 14th to 15th (Funayama 2016). Many attributed the new relaxed education system to the loss of Japan’s flourishing status “at the top of the world” (Funayama 2016). In response to this academic crisis, Japan’s Ministry of Education first proposed “Reverse-Yutori” Education (脱ゆとり教育) in 2008 and fully implemented the new curriculum in 2011. In order to foster Japan’s competitiveness in the rapidly globalizing world, the Reverse-Yutori Education not only increased the intensity of traditional academics but also introduced different course materials, such as ESOL (English as a Second or Foreign Language) in elementary education and intensified STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) and cultural studies in secondary education (FLAPS n.d.).

Even though the international test scores improved after the implementation of the Reverse-Yutori Education, negative effects of the Yutori Education long persisted across the youth generation. For example, the older generations mocked that kids who had received the relaxed education — called the Yutori Generation — developed “no stress tolerance” (Kaonavi 2020). Other negative stereotypes describe those in the Yutori Generation, born between 1987 and 2004, as “not taking initiatives without supervisory guidance,” “lacking resilience for personal failure,” and “generally apathetic and indifferent” (Mynavi 2021; Kaonavi 2020). In fact, popular media often depict stories of young professionals who quit or take a leave of absence from their jobs after receiving critical feedback from their bosses. Many academics have also examined the decline of youths’ motivation for academic and career success. For instance, Burtscher and Kariya (2013) show survey data comparing students’ attitude toward out-of-school studying and academic performance in 1979 and 1998, which demonstrates significant decline, if not a complete crash.

During and after the Yutori Education policy, reduced support in public schools also widened the achievement gap between different socioeconomic classes. While the Ministry of Education implemented the laid-back curriculum, most private schools maintained the traditional strict learning environment. Thus, many educated wealthy parents concerned about their children’s college admission sent them to elite private institutions (Ishikawa 2017). In fact, the Yutori Education aimed to develop children’s ability to “think and learn for themselves,” relying on their individual motivation and autonomy as well as access to nurturing experience outside of school. For this reason, the increased free time out of school successfully facilitated individual initiative for a small minority of students with economic, social, and cultural capital, but it curtailed self-motivated learning for many others without such means (Itoh, 2014). Under the neoliberal policies, Japan’s cultural shift from collectivism to individualism popularized the idea of self-responsibility with an assumption that everyone has equal opportunities. The emergence of individualistic ideology justified the achievement gap caused by students’ unequal ability to find and pursue yaritaikoto through their aspiration and initiative taking. Thus, it is not surprising that the Yanai Foundation praises aspiring over-achieving students for their ambition for change rather than improving the educational attainment of average students across the country.

4–4. 2010s — Present: The Study-Abroad Boom against the Stagnation

As the stagnation persists, several statistics suggest the bleak future of the Japanese economy. Moreover, many proponents of transnational education, including Yanai himself, cite these data to call for urgent reform. For instance, Figure 1 shows that Japan’s real wages — the value of money received by workers in private sectors after taking into account the effect of inflation — has decreased by 10.3% between 1997 and 2016, even though other Western nations experienced the opposite during the same period (Yahoo! Japan 2021). Similarly, 32 of the top 50 companies in the world market capitalization ranking in 1989 were Japanese corporations, but as of 2018 only one (Toyota) is listed in the top 50 (Diamond Online 2018). Furthermore, some view the gradual decline in the number of Japanese international students in the U.S. (Figure 2) as an alarming sign that Japan is losing its competitiveness in innovative and global industries (Hanuka Data Tribune 2015). Although these data have often been used to support neoliberal reform in many social factors, it is fair to state that the Japanese economy is in unhealthy shape, at least by the mainstream standard of growth-driven economics.

Figure 1. International Comparison of Real Wages between 1995 and 2016

Figure 2. The Number of Asian International Students in the U.S. between 1995 and 2013

In response to Japan’s prolonged stagnation, numerous leaders, both in the public and private sectors, have promoted study abroad as a means to revitalize the country. In October of 2013, for example, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) launched the study abroad promotion campaign named “TOBITATE (Leap for Tomorrow)! Study Abroad JAPAN” (トビタテ! 留学JAPAN). “Aiming to grow global individuals who can succeed around the world in the future,” this unparalleled initiative drew financial and human resources not only from the government but also from NGOs, nonprofits, and private corporations (MEXT n.d.). By providing merit-based scholarships, accessible information, and supportive communities, TOBITATE attempted to double the number of Japanese students, both in high school and university, studying abroad by the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games. The Abe Cabinet set such targets as part of the “Revitalization Strategy for Japan — JAPAN is BACK” (MEXT n.d., emphasis added). Although this program — for which only students planning to graduate from Japanese schools were eligible — successfully popularized the concept of study abroad across the country, it did not directly increase the number of full-time students at four-year universities abroad.

Given the extremely expensive tuition at such institutions, the creation of full-ride merit-based scholarships has directly facilitated the current “study-abroad boom.” Indeed, 2016 was a year of emerging scholarship programs for transnational higher education. For example, Japan’s top two billionaires — Tadashi Yanai and Masayoshi Son — launched their own foundations. Their scholarship programs slightly differ in means and ends, yet they are both geared toward youths with high aspirations and talents. Additionally, the Japan Student Services Organization began its fully public merit-based scholarship in order to “promote Japan’s internationalization and global competitiveness” (JASSO 2021). For the sake of national development, this program aims to “foster excellent human resources who can internationally play a leading role,” which closely resembles other initiatives to promote study abroad (JASSO 2021). Furthermore, Sasakawa Peace Foundation announced in February of 2022 that it would begin a scholarship program that covers all costs of university attendance, annual stipend, and round-trip flight tickets for 100 students per year, starting from the next academic year. Once again, this program promises to support “students interested in social issues to broaden their perspectives, develop an international outlook, and acquire advanced knowledge for their future endeavors” (Sasakawa Peace Foundation 2021, emphasis added). Combining total acceptances from these scholarship programs, roughly 150 Japanese students receive full-ride financial aid every year to “develop Japanese society.” The cross-analysis on these transnational scholarship programs further contextualizes the Yanai Scholarship as a fraction of Japan’s desperate efforts for national revitalization.

Around the same period as the rise of scholarship programs, several business elites published books on transnational elite higher education, in which they mention Japan’s stagnation as one of major reasons why young people should go abroad. For example, New Jersey-based journalist and educator Akihiko Reizei published a book titled How to Get into the Ivy League: The Unknown Reality of U.S. College Admissions and Prestigious Universities’ Acceptance Criteria [アイビーリーグの入り方アメリカ大学入試の知られざる実態と名門大学の合格基準] (2014). In 2018, Hideki Yamamoto, a businessman who has earned an MBA degree from University of Cambridge, wrote his first book: Minerva, the University Most Desired by the World’s Elites Today [世界のエリートが今一番入りたい大学ミネルバ]. While these earlier books focus on transnational higher education in prestigious institutions, others promote study abroad in general as a crucial means to address Japan’s economic and social stagnation. For instance, in his book titled Learn in the world to Survive in 2030 [世界で学べ 2030に生き残るために], entrepreneur and educator Masaki Otani (2019) warns that the current Japanese education system has not changed in the past 150 years despite the massive shift in economic and cultural needs. The only way to unwind the direct link between obsolete education and economic stagnation, Otani argues, is to “learn in the world and acquire global perspectives.” In the similar vein, educational entrepreneur Ning Shirakawa shares her blatantly honest message in the title of her book — Fleeing Abroad Academy: Obtain the Cheat-Mode “Freedom” with Ordinary Efforts and a Little Bit of Courage [国外逃亡塾:普通の努力と少しばかりの勇気でチートモードな「自由」を手に入れる] (2020). Since all of these authors have worked and/or received an MBA degree abroad, it may not be surprising that their arguments for study abroad are based on the need to grow individual and national economic power. Such a trend resembles Tadashi Yanai’s motivation behind the Scholarship in question.

4–5. 2010s — Present: The Study-Abroad Boom for Yaritaikoto

While not all transnational students hope to help Japanese society as a whole, many of them feel compelled to encourage the next generation to take an educational path that best facilitates their yaritaikoto. In 2011, for instance, a Japanese student at Harvard University and his peers from Japan and the U.S. began questioning normative expectations about their own education experiences. Hoping to challenge the status quo, they started a summer school for Japanese high school students, which later became a nonprofit called HLAB (HLAB n.d.). Similarly, another Harvard student started a nonprofit, Ryugaku (study abroad) Fellowship, in order to support students who want to attend universities abroad. Despites its explicit focus on study abroad, the purpose of Ryugaku Fellowship is not to promote study abroad in and of itself, but to help middle and high school students discover and pursue the best path for themselves (Ryugaku Fellowship n.d.). Thus, both HLAB and Ryugaku Fellowship present transnational higher education merely as one possible option for interested students, rather than the ultimate goal everyone should aspire to.

While many Yanai scholars join HLAB and Ryugaku Fellowship as both high school participants and college camp counselors, others launch their own organizations. In the spring of 2020, two Columbia students launched atelier basi, a nonprofit that runs an online program to provide free mentoring and workshops for the college admission process (atelier basi 2020). Some Yanai scholars received its services and many others volunteered as a tutor. About a year after the launch of atelier basi, six Yanai scholars opened a website, Kaigai Daigaku (Overseas University) Discoveries, which provides useful information about college admissions abroad. Highlighting previous students’ real experiences, owners of the website emphasize the importance of reflecting on and expressing one’s authentic self (ありのままの自分) and pursuing yaritaikoto during high school. Across these student-led nonprofits supporting college admissions, the most prominent advice is to embrace who you are without worrying about impressing the admission officers. The dilemma between expressing oneself and impressing admission officers resembles the yaritaikoto discourse in Japanese hiring practices, as briefly mentioned in the introduction.

Building on the merit-based scholarships and nonprofits for college admission advice, the rise of social media accounts about study abroad has improved the access to useful information online. In March of 2022, an anonymous account on Twitter commented that many Japanese international students are hurrying too much to accomplish impressive results by helping high school students with college admissions, despite their lack of life experiences to meaningfully give back to society (Master Nankai 2022). In response to this post, a Yanai scholar who is an enthusiastic supporter of transnational higher education tweeted:

When I was in my first year of college, there were no international students sharing information for high school students. I’m impressed that we’ve come this far to be discussed like this in just a few years. I am sure that the current study abroad boom has resulted from the steady accumulation of efforts by international students who simply hope to support younger students (Aya’s Adventure at Harvard 2022).

Figure 3. A Yanai Scholar’s Tweet

Both of these tweets illustrate Japanese transnational students’ increasing efforts to help college admissions abroad. Furthermore, the Yanai student’s reflection that “we’ve come this far to be discussed like this in just a few years” demonstrates the significant shift in recent years. Some Yanai scholars like her have social media accounts with thousands — or even tens of thousands — of followers. Those students’ growing presence online has contributed to not only delivering information to those who need it but also popularizing such an option to those who previously never considered it.

Another key contributor to the current study abroad boom is the increasing publications by current transnational students and industry leaders. The common narrative across students’ success stories is that “ordinary high schoolers” who lack international backgrounds, financial resources, and supportive environments can still attend elite universities abroad with resilience, creativity, and courage to take action. In 2020, a Yanai scholar published a first book of this kind titled New High School Student: The story of an ordinary Japanese high school girl who was accepted to top overseas universities [あたらしい高校生海外のトップ大学に合格した、日本の普通の女子高生の話]. Two years later, another Yanai scholar wrote Ability to Seize Dreams That a Country Girl Accepted to Stanford University Has Acquired [田舎からスタンフォード大学に合格した私が身につけた夢をつかむ力]. While these books provide some technical tips for college admissions, their main arguments emphasize psychological capital, such as grit, self-awareness, and of course, pursuit of yaritaikoto. As far as I am aware, there will be at least two more books on tips for college admission abroad which Yanai scholars are helping publish. Therefore, the growing number of these publications indicates the rapidly increasing interest in study abroad.

4–6. 2017 — Present: Evolution of the Yanai Tadashi Scholarship

In his autobiographies, Yanai shares his pessimistic view about the Japanese economy, politics, and education, especially in comparison with other Asian nations. For instance, he criticizes Japan as “at a great risk of perishing as a nation” and Japanese citizens as “showing absolutely no sign of waking up from their thoughtless state” (Yanai 2012). Describing the economic development in ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) as “Gold Rush,” he compares Japanese youths’ relaxed and uncritical attitudes with eagerly growth-oriented mindsets of those in neighboring countries. In particular, Yanai praises Asian youths for their independence and aspirations stemming from their belief that one cannot rely on the government for help. As he questions why the number of Japanese international students is much lower than that of other Asian countries, he states:

Provided these supportive arrangements in society, you should be able to take action on your own if you are willing. I have no sympathy for those who are always complaining and whining about the country or the company. I even view people who are still unaware of the problems as completely helpless (Yanai 2013).

Three years after publishing this book, Yanai started a scholarship program, which supports “aspiring and passionate students,” rather than “people who are still unaware of the problems.” Rather than elevating the lives of ordinary Japanese people, Yanai prioritizes helping those with aspiring yaritaikoto to “acquire advanced knowledge on a global level” to make Japan great again (The Yanai Tadashi Foundation n.d.). In an interview by the Nikkei (2017), the most dominant financial newspaper in Japan, Yanai explains that he established the Foundation due to his sense that “Japan is closed [from the rest of the world].” Additionally, he mentions that he focused on undergraduate education, rather than graduate programs such as MBA or Ph.D., because he “want[s] people to discover the goodness and strengths of the Japanese people through experiencing diversity” (Nikkei 2017). In this article, he does not elaborate why he believes undergraduate programs are more diverse than graduate ones. Perhaps, this quote suggests Yanai’s lack of concrete knowledge about higher education abroad that he needed to launch a scholarship program.

Given such a lack of expertise, the Yanai Foundation partnered with two types of organizations familiar with the U.S. college systems. The first group is HLAB, the aforementioned nonprofit founded by the Harvard student. HLAB members helped with the scholarship’s logistical operations, from marketing and admissions to organizing social events and providing mentorship to admitted scholars, in its early stages. After the first few years, however, the Foundation gradually reduced its reliance on HLAB in order to become independent. Given that HLAB has played a significant role in the admissions process and mentorship for admitted scholars, it is critical to unpack the Foundation’s partnership with HLAB and their detaching relationship.

Similarly, the Foundation developed partnerships with a few prestigious high schools in the Tokyo Metropolitan area. Unlike most domestic high schools, those top private schools have consistently sent a handful of graduates to elite institutions abroad, especially ones the Yanai Foundation approves of. Admittedly, I do not exactly know what kinds of support those high schools offered to the Foundation. However, many Yanai scholars know that the Foundation admitted several students based on their school recommendations — a completely unpublicized channel for the select few. In fact, the administration never mentioned this secret path even to admitted scholars, who eventually heard about it from their fellow scholars who are graduates of the appointed schools. Due to this lack of open communication from the administration, the information I provided here was acquired through prior conversations with my peers. Similar to how the Foundation began distancing itself from HLAB, admissions by designated school recommendations ended a few years ago.

In contrast with its exclusive past, the Yanai Scholarship has recently attempted to become more inclusive in terms of eligible countries, financial aid coverage, and admission processes. First, the Foundation initially accepted applicants who plan to attend American universities, but it began approving “the compatible U.K. universities” from 2019 onwards (The Yanai Tadashi Foundation n.d.). After this change, however, the majority of Yanai scholars still go to institutions in the U.S.. Second, the Foundation announced during the rise of COVID-19 that the scholarship package would now include a $15,000 annual stipends in 2020–21 academic year and onwards. Although this adjustment had no contextual tie to the global pandemic, some scholars found it controversial for they believed that the same resources could be utilized elsewhere to help those severely suffering from the global pandemic. Finally, the most recent change is the addition of another admission round prior to the college application period, which started for the class of 2025. This admission round is only open to students from domestic schools in Japan, who are the least likely and prepared to attend prestigious universities abroad. Since this new admission round allows students to receive their application results in September, those admitted can choose not to ask college admissions for financial aid. This privilege significantly improves their chance of getting accepted given the highly limited financial aid for international students. Over the past five years, the Yanai Foundation seems to have modified its scholarship program, yet its motive behind these decisions requires further investigation.

Next >> 5. The Extremely Vague Approach to “Social Good” (Data Analysis #1)