In 2019, the percent of Japanese students attending private junior high schools nationally was 7.4%. In Tokyo, however, a quarter of all students do. It is not uncommon for parents there to decide upon a place to live only after an oldest child has passed his/her private junior high school entrance exam.

Since 2015, there has been a slight, but steady increase of 0.1 percentage points each year. I suspect that with the household budgets being squeezed due to COVID-19, the percentage attending private junior high schools will drop somewhat.

I was talking to a third year junior high school student yesterday about private junior high schools in Japan. She said that of her elementary school, only 20 out of the 200 six graders went to private junior high schools.

One went on to Nada in Hyōgo, considered the best in the nation; 5 went to Kurume Fusetsu, the highest ranked in Fukuoka Prefecture; 3 went on to Ōhori; 2 to Waseda Fusetsu in Karatsu, Saga; 2 to Seiun (don’t know this school); 3 to Jōchi, a Jesuit school associated with Sophia University in Tōkyō; and 2 went to Chikujo, a Buddhist girls school. She couldn't remember where the other two went.

To get into a private junior high school usually requires students to spend a lot of time cramming at juku (private evening schools) in the later years of elementary school. The girl I was talking to only attended in the sixth grade, which she admitted was too late. She had classes four days a week from 5 in the afternoon to 9 at night. She usually went to bed around 11 because of all the additional homework she had to do.

During the school breaks, she attended week-long overnight study camps, which she admitted were rather unpleasant experiences. The juku she attended cost about ¥60,000 a month. Her junior high school now costs ¥50,000 a month, plus other fees. So, to get into a "good" private junior high school, you'll have to fork over up to a million yen a year ($9,000), then continue paying a similar amount for the next six years for private school tuition, or $60-80,000 all together even before university.

While that seems a bit stiff, it’s still a third of the eye-watering tuition my Jesuit high school now charges. I really don’t know how people are able to afford it on top of their home mortgages payments and health insurance premiums, and car loans, and, and, and . . . And I'm not poor. Just fucking stingy.