Education is big business in Japan, and as with all big businesses there are lots of government agencies and organizations who make money from it. In turn, these public organs can find themselves in just as much financial trouble as private companies, what with the continuing economic downturn.

Take the Nihon Gakusei Shien Kiko, or, in English, Japan Student Services Association (JASSO), which is mainly responsible for distributing university scholarships to qualifying students. Before we go any further, these scholarships are not what you might expect them to be if you went to school in the West. For some reason the word shogakukin is translated in English as "scholarship," which in America, at least, describes grants given to students with extraordinary abilities, special needs or both. In Japan, shogakukin are essentially student loans. Except for some special programs carried out by individual universities, there are no grants.

JASSO is finding itself in a pickle thanks to the recession. According to the association's statistics, only about 60 percent of university graduates in 2009 have found regular full-time employment so far. This portion, however, marks an increase over recent years. In 2004, the percentage was 53 percent for men and 59 percent for women. Since then the portion has risen slightly for men, but has dropped to about 35 percent for women. During the bubble era of the 1980s, about 80 percent of college grads found regular full-time jobs. The portion peaked in 1991 at 81.3 percent, and has declined ever since.