Many studies have looked at the effectiveness of university education. It can be said that this research has involved mainstream themes, such as the sociology of education and the economics of education. In a previous research project a "practice of learning" hypothesis was constructed from an analysis of a survey of engineering graduates, that considered how current learning related to university studies, leading to better performance at work and increased income. This paper aims to compare and verify the results of the analysis of a survey of engineering graduates, to test the validity of this "practice of learning" hypothesis and whether similar results could be obtained in the field of economics.This paper uses two types of data. The first is that of a questionnaire survey of 976 engineering graduates undertaken in 2004. The second is that of a questionnaire survey of 596 economics graduates conducted in 2009. Both of these surveys were carried out with a random sampling of graduates at the same national university.The main points resulting from the analysis are as follows: firstly, it was confirmed that educational benefits were derived from the practice of learning among economics graduates but that overall these benefits were smaller than those for engineering graduates. In other words, the benefits of a link to studying shown in the practice of learning hypothesis was confirmed among economics graduates, but in their case, this was because the knowledge obtained during time spent at university had a directly negative effect on income that could not be ignored. More specifically, it was discovered that economics graduates felt that the knowledge and skills they had acquired at university were more of a hindrance. Secondly, however, the negative effects of the knowledge and skills learned at university disappeared over time, and as a result, the educational benefits we are accustomed to seeing among economics graduates are particularly striking from middle-age onwards. In general, the occupational positions held by economics graduates and engineering graduates, differ. Most economics graduates work in white collar occupations, such as administration or sales, whereas most engineering graduates become technicians. To put it another way, on the one hand economics graduates occupy positions that do not have a direct connection with what they studied at university, whereas engineering graduates occupy positions that can be said to be an extension of their time at university. Such differences appeared immediately when those who had studied engineering began work, but it is possible that this may be connected to the differences in the practice of learning accumulated in the fields of engineering and economics. The results for economics graduates seemed to gradually manifest themselves as their careers progress.Finally, we also investigated the graduates' own recognition of the outcomes of their education. As stated above, it was also confirmed that a university education really did benefit economics graduates, but few of the graduates were themselves aware of these benefits, probably due to the time it took for the effects of education to become manifest. In Japan, particularly in relation to the Arts, there is often skepticism about the effectiveness of a university education, but possibly the kind of mechanism considered above, exists behind the scenes.

Since 1976, the application rate of high school students for university has remained level at around fifty percent, and this seems to have contributed to the excess supply of higher education caused by the demographic decline. However, previous research has not clarified the reason why students do not go on to university despite the ease if access.<BR>This paper examines the extent to which economic factors underlie the stabilization of the application rate at 50%, through an analysis of the determinants of entrance rates for senmon gakko (technical schools) and employment rates after high school graduation from 1970 to 2004.<BR>The results of the analysis of the obvious demand factors indicate that household income has a strong positive impact, the price of private university tuition has a negative impact, and the unemployment rate has a positive impact on the application rate. Statistically, these results are weak, as they have a low value on the D. W. criteria, so the author uses the chow test approach to this problem solving. The test shows that there are structural changes in the trend of the determinants factor of the application rate during three decades, meaning that it would be better to divide it into three period times, 1970-1975, 1976-1996 and 1997-2004. In the first period, household income increases demand withoutan influence from price, and in the second period there was a positive effect of income, negative effect of price, and positive effect of the unemployment rate. In the third period, only unemployment had an impact, and there was no effect of income and price.<BR>It is possible to understand the leveling off of demand for higher education by considering household budget conditions, the rapid price increases since 1975, and in particular the high unemployment rate since 1997. However, the demand for higher education is actually higher than the application rate, since there are students who find employment or go to technical schools as a substitute for going to university. In order to consider this latent demand for higher education, an analysis of the determinants of the employment rate and entrance rate for technical schools is introduced.<BR>This analysis shows that there are individuals who find employment instead of going to university for the reason of the high price, and who go to technical schools for the reason of the high prices and low acceptance rate for entrance examinations. This result indicates that, considering this latent demand, the demand for higher education is larger than that indicated by the application rate. One policy implication of this study is that the application rate will increase in the near future as the economic recovery makes the latent demand obvious. Second, since there is still inequality of educational opportunities, low tuition and student aid should be introduced to equalize enrollment difference based on family income.

This paper attempts to describe the relationship between students'and teachers'orientation to reform in engineering education, where the delivery of these programs has reached the ""massification stage"". This relationship is analyzed using two indices of orientation to education reform : type 1 is the systemization of coursework into a common program for all students, and type 2 is a release of students to explore independent research. This study demonstrates the gap between students'and teachers'orientations to the 2 types of reform. We collected data from a questionnaire survey conducted in January and February of 2002, and obtained the following three findings : 1) Students'orientations are uniform throughout all institutions surveyed. A lot of students responded more negatively to the type 1 reform and more positively to the type 2 reform than teachers. 2) Teachers'orientations differ according to institutional type. While teachers at elite institutions are negative to both types of reform, teachers at mass institutions are more positive to both types of reform. Therefore, the study found that the teachers'orientation determined the size of the gap between students'and teachers'orientations to reform. 3) Teachers at mass institutions tend to take a more progressive approach - - a reaction to the decline of students'academic competencies - - and feel the necessity for reform.

The expansion of graduate education has been one of the major policy priorities in the area of higher education in recent years. Meanwhile, enrollments in graduate courses, especially in MSS (master programs in social sciences) have been rising rapidly. This paper attempts to analyze the mechanism of the expansion of MSS programs. For this purpose, the following two questions are posed. (1) Has the actual expansion conformed to the governmental framework? (2) If not, how can the mechanism behind the expansion of MSS enrollments be explained? On the first question, the following findings are made. At the end of the 1980s, there was a significant shift in government policy, encouraging the expansion of MSS programs. At the time, the government had two preconceptions about MSS. One was that students with a high motivation for study would apply for admission, and another that the social demand for students who had completed MSS programs was increasing. The government assumed that a significant amount of talent would be developed through MSS courses if the enrolment capacity expanded. However, the actual expansion fell below these expectations. On the second question, a methodological strategy was used of analyzing the interaction between students (demand side) and each individual university (supply side) as suggested by Craig and Archer. From this analysis, coupled with the findings for the first question, the following expansion mechanism was obtained : Following the shift in government policy at the end of the 1980s, national and private universities that already had MSS courses began to expand their admission capacities around 1990. This brought an expansion in demand among students for admission to MSS courses. However, in contrast to the expectation of the government, the social demand for students who had completed MSS programs did not increase much, and many of the students who entered MSS courses actually did not have a high motivation to study. There was also an expansion in the latter part of 1990s, because many private universities that had not focused much on MSS courses until the middle of the 1980s built up admission capacity based on the expected demand among students. Thus, an autonomous expansion among private universities occurred. These findings imply and suggest the following : (1) The actual expansion in MSS enrolments did not conform to the policy aim because the government did not judge student motivations correctly and did not take into consideration what private universities might do. In order to ensure the policy aims of such an expansion, some devices would be required to restrict the type of new students. (2) It was found that it was the steps taken by individual universities that had the greatest effect on how actual expansions occurred. The conclusion is that when analyzing expansions of enrolment, it is imperative to include measures that take into account actions by individual universities that increase supply.