（6）Scholarships and Student Welfare

Scholarship programs in Japan reached a turning point in1953 when the Japan Scholarship Foundation established a program exempting the repayment of loan scholarships in the hope of encouraging students to enter the fields of research and teaching. The student loan program was improved in 1958 to include special loans lending more money to some students and in 1964 it was expanded so as to include special loans to those students who were planning to teach in the compulsory schools. From 1967, the sum of loan scholarships for private university students was increased, in view of the higher tuition fees these students paid to their universities. Nevertheless, the existing scholarship program has proved insufficient since the early1960s to keep pace 'with the rising cost of living and the growing number of students, and a study is now under way to determine the type of national scholarship program that would best meet present circumstances. To date the bulk of educational scholarship funds have come from the Japan Scholarship Foundation. Funds from various other organizations, such as local public bodies, non-profit foundations, universities and colleges, and companies amounted to only 6.6 billion yen 111the 1970 academic year, or about one-third of the 18.8 billion yen awarded by the Japan Scholarship Foundation during that year. Efforts are also being made by the government to encourage the growth of non-governmental scholarship program5through tax reductions or exemptions and other means.

Table 7-13. Amounts of Scholarships Awarded by the Japan Scholarship Foundation as Student Loans per Month

With regard to student welfare, the construction and impprovement of student dormitories, student halls, and health care centers over the past ten years has been remarkable. In the case of national universities alone 134 dormitories have either been newly constructed or renovated, student halls have been established at 35 universities, and health care centers set up at38 universities in the years since 1966. Lately there have been many disputes between students and the university administration over the management both of the dormitories and the student halls.