Papers are presented which offer a detailed perspective of the changing state of institutions in the non-university sector in Japan. They are the product of three research projects. The projects were: a group study on the short-cycle higher education; a United States-Japan cooperative study on education; and from the Organization for Economic…

Although the Japanese junior college was the result of post-World War II American interventions to create a post-secondary educational system along the lines of the American community college, the institutions in the two countries have taken divergent paths. Both institutions do provide a general, postsecondary education of a shorter duration.…

The divergent cultural patterns, philosophies of education, and basic structures of government in Japan and the United States have resulted in distinct differences between the educational systems of the two countries. The national government strictly regulates all aspects of Japanese education (including student achievement levels and the…