Major media company Recruit Marketing Partners is waging a price war in a field of business that has thrived despite a dwindling pool of clients: preparing for entrance exams.

Many families in Japan spend a fortune sending their children to cram school classes at night and on weekends, in addition to regular daytime schooling. With more than half of high school graduates advancing to college, compared with less than a third 20 years ago, pressure to get into better schools remains fierce despite the declining number of students in the country.

According to a 2013 survey by Japan Finance Corp., a government-run financial institution, among the 4,942 households that took out an education loan from the institution between February and March that year, families with two children spent 40.1 percent of their income on education, including both school tuition and fees and their cram school costs, up from 38.4 percent the year before.