Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/73560

JaLCDOI : 10.14943/J.HighEdu.26.25

Abstract - In 2017, the Japanese Goverment announced the plan of the New Policy for Human Development, aiming to reduce inequality and nurture the workforce needed for the development of 21st-century Japan. It includes tuition-free scholarships for low-income families, benefit-type scholarships, and income-linked repayment loans for university students. In contrast, a new, diffirent type of schlarship is in place in some states in the United States. In 2014, Governor Bill Haslam of Tennessee signed the Tennessee Promise Act, and it was implemented in 2015. It is a state scholarship that makes tuition for community colleges free for two years for all the first time students who attend any of the Tennessee community colleges. The completion rate for community colleges is only 25%. Why did the lawmakers decide to spend money on institutions of higher education with such low productivity? The Tennessee Promise has been an immense success and, by March 2018, fifteen states had followed Tennessee and enavted similar Promise-type programs. Today, in Japan, as well as in the United States, more than 50% of 18-yaer-olds attend college or university. We are at the universal stage of Martin Trow's model of higher education. Why free-tuition policies have appeared at this stage of universalization? In this paper, the author analyzes the features of Tennessee's free-tuition scholoarships and tries to explain the meaning of the program using Trow's model.