an opinion machine! regarding universities...

So, again, Japan's facing a crisis of not enough young people, and not enough baby-making. The government and people are willing to discuss two ways to deal with the finicial crisis that arises from having too small a workforce.

1. create more tax revenue.
2. create more babies.

To someone like me, they're rather obviously ignoring the elephant in the room....

3. increase controlled immigration

I mentioned in 2 + 2 that having a pretense for selecting rich/elite immigrants is nice (if not kind). Japan understandably doesn't want a wave of impoverished, unskilled immigrants who may not learn the language and customs. Germany knows the problem.* How better to control the immigrant population than to assure that all of a certain type of immigrant be college-educated and fluent in Japanese?
How do you do that? Well, you've got your universities slowly emptying out; you've got increased global awareness of and interest in Japan, Japanese language, and Japanese technology; you've got a reasonable history of investing in international exchange...

Follow the model of Sweden or of Germany. Make the public universities free, or very, very cheap for citizens and non-citizens alike. Do this, while maintaining reasonably high admissions standards, and poof! A whole generation of talented youngsters from all around the world are here, speakin Japanese, learnin how to live Japanese, and (providing intelligent immigration laws) stayin' around and makin new babies and new money.

Has it worked that way for Sweden and Germany? Well, yes and no. Cheap university has drawn innumerable talented foreign students, as well as opening higher education to a broader stripe of the populous. Many, of course are staying. But if they stay, they often bring their extended families, with no knowledge of the local language... or they send a great deal of their earnings home, and out of the national economy.
In both countries, other forms of immigration have also brought in waves of immigrants as well... so they have not really been able to maintain societal integration to the extent that Japan demands. Immigrant ghettos are a growing problem.

Still, I think properly managed, this is an opportunity for Japan to take the reigns on immigration before it becomes totally necessary to bring in foreigners en masse to keep the economy alive.