Back in the US I had heard of some companies giving employees benefits such as an annual stipend for education or an option to work part-time and study part-time with the stipend covering most of the tuition. Anyone experience an offer like this in Japan? I haven’t come across such benefits while here.
Edit: Asking because I might want a postgraduate degree one day
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I’ve only known one case where Toyota did that for a worker but that’s it. She also had to commit another 5 years of work too after graduation or she had to pay some of the fees back.
To the best of my knowledge, large companies do have such programs (based on the fact that at the eikaiwa where I work most adult students have their courses paid for by their company), but to be eligible for such a stipend you’d need to be a full-time employee.
Many (most?) pharma companies in Japan give you extra time off with no reduction in pay to do postgraduate courses. Plus a bump in salary after you graduate, of course.
Yes there are more than a few depending on the industry, but you’d have to be a seishain on the right track within the company.
Yea bigger companies do for MBAs.
At least a couple pharma companies do to my knowledge.
>Do companies in Japan offer to pay for postgraduate degrees?
Yes, but really no.
A few big companies like Hitachi will pay for post-grad **education** for key employees but not “degrees.” Why? Because post-grad degrees belong to employee ^{and ^used ^for ^job ^mobility} , but post-grad research belongs to the company.
On occasion, a large Japanese tech company will fund a university for a targeted research need and send a Japanese (not foreign) employee to “help” a research project for **one** year or less. Many famous foreign universities have non-degree, one year or less, post grad, research programs specially for Japanese employees which serve as revenue generators (sort of a scam).
My colleague got his MBA paid for by the company. He had to turn that into a project though. He did graduate in the end but it was a whole new world of めんどくさい
My large, well-known Japanese company would laugh in my face if I asked for such a thing.
“One hour lunch break is about the best we can do!”
Some do, yes. I’ve met a few Japanese company employees who have been fully supported and funded by their company or the government to get a master’s degree, usually they’ve gone to the UK since postgraduate study can be completed within 1 year.
Yes, mine was for all type of graduate degree (mba msc meng, phd etc) . I applied for one but decided to back off because of the 5 year bond that entails.
My company offers each employee a budget of 20man/year for education but it has to be related to your work and or help improving your quality of work.
>Back in the US I had heard of some companies giving employees benefits
There you go, you answered your own question. Some companies might, some don’t. Not all companies have the exact same set of policies in Japan.
My company gives a interest free loan to its employees for this, and a couple of days off. A friend of mine in a different company gets nothing. Japan is a big place, there are a lot of companies out there, each and every one different from the other.
A lot of generalist industries don’t want people with Master’s or PhDs because they don’t want to pay them more when they’re assigned the same work. As far as I know it’s mostly for people in specialist positions, and they have to commit to a few extra years.
But, you can often pay the difference to get out of the bond. Not a company, but when the MOFA let people buy themselves out of the commitment, more people quit than before, because they’d still be able to earn a lot more than what they’d earn at MOFA. (and escape the 1:30 AM taxis home but that’s another story)
Companies often have skill improvement programs, where they are happy to pay for a course which will be useful at your job, normally within a certain sum of money annually.
University tuitions are way out of that allowance and by most part Japanese managers don’t see university as anything useful. So no, there are no such programs, not in the most companies at least.
I’ve got a postgraduate degree while working and the workplace was more concerned that I dare to think about the studies in addition to work. And I work in a good company.
Japanese companies usually have meagre benefits, not like anything you get in Europe. I don’t know about US.
Even in the US, the days of companies paying for a post-graduate degree for employees is all but gone. Very few do it, and only for their top caliber high performers.
Most only do it up to $5250/year per employee, as that is the maximum tax deduction they can take for it. So it’s a benefit/perk they can advertise, but really actually only costs them a minimal amount anyways. And $5250 doesn’t even put a dent into a masters degree in the US anymore.
For their Japanese employees, maybe? For us foreigner, who knows but I wouldn’t get my hopes up.
Tokyo Metropolitan Government does select their employee to study Public Admin in DC although I only know 1 person who gets to go so I can’t say anything else.
This is not the US so I think it’s better to get rid of any “in the US they…” kind of expectation, btw.
I’m pretty sure financial services companies pay for certain employees to get their MBAs in the US and law firms pay for junior lawyers to get an LL.M. in the US or the UK or Australia, and then to take a local bar exam. They in addition to tuition they subsidize or cover housing. But in return the expectation is that following the degree/licensing, the employee will remain with the employer for say at least 5 years. And if they do leave within that time or don’t come back — they are supposed to repay the employer all the amounts the employer paid on their behalf.
In other areas, I don’t know though.
My company did that for a guy, but he was specifically doing post-doc research in an advanced field of chemical engineering that was brand new while working together with our joint research partners at the graduate school to establish new techniques for applied material science to meet the company’s R&D needs.
I have worked for 2 global corporations and they both offered graduate courses and programs for employees within the field that the company supported through accredited Japanese schools. Managers also had the option to support employee post grad education if they wanted to, but that was up to the business unit you belong to.
Japanese citizen here. My dad, who worked at a large shosha at the time, had his US MBA fully paid for by his company. But that was 30 years ago, and things seem to have changed now – I guess they realized many people were leaving for better opportunities lol.
But I think many large companies here (especially gaishi) have programs to help fund your continuing education. I work for an American company here in Tokyo and have several colleagues who are using that assistance to get their MBA part-time. Not sure what the amount is, though.
It does happen. How often I’m not sure but I had one friend who had that happen and one right now whose company is paying for her masters in the US in California and is loving it. She’s definitely making the best of it. Definitely out there but would take some research.
I am an MBA Student at a Japanese university. A few of the Japanese students including that in my cohort are company sponsored students. They get all their tuition and school expenses paid for (including week-long exchanges to other business schools abroad) on top of getting their monthly salary. Some of their colleagues got sent to do their MBA abroad (Singapore, US, UK, etc). I will be joining a Japanese company after I graduate, and the manager I will be reporting to also was sponsored by his company to do an MBA in the UK.
I’ve met a couple of people who got their master’s degree paid by their respective companies.
In both cases though they got into top tier programs (MIT, Harvard) and were able to get their management to sponsor them. One worked for Toyota and the other for a major garment manufacturer.
I met a third person (non-Japanese) who did a fellowship at MIT while working for a Japanese company, but I don’t know if he was self-funded or if the company paid for his tuition.
So yes many large Japanese companies pay for postgraduate degrees, but not as a general benefit available to every employee.
I work at a company that’s large for inaka standards. every year there’s 2-3 people getting their master’s with full sponsorship from the company, but it is an extremely selective process. typically HR is the one to approach the person with the opportunity, not the other way around. they are basically full-time students, being paid to study and occasionally show up to the office.
I have a friend who works at a major Japanese manufacturer and iirc if someone chooses to go into postgrad in a related field, then the company pays for part/all of it, but it’s a case-by-case basis, and almost always they are locked in to staying with the company for 3-5 years after that. (this probably has more to do with labor law though)
Some companies do if your study is relevant
I used to work for Mitsubishi Heavy industries and they used to give a higher salary to those with a Masters or PHD
One company I worked for (software engineer) would cover various education expenses and had really nice flex time, but did not allow dropping to part time. Thats just one example, though
I hear this is a thing for MBA but not usually the case for masters or PhD. Could be wrong tho. I myself works for an American company which is owned by Japanese company… I am the only one that I know of that the company said yes to funding graduate degree