Should I stay or should I go?

  
  Many college students relish the idea of heading off to a foreign country to study for a semester and experience a new culture. In many cases it's not if a student is going overseas but to which country and for how long. Japanese students, however, are bucking this trend and choosing to stay at home on the island.  
     According to the Japanese Ministry of Education and Science, the number of students leaving home to go abroad dipped 11 percent (67,000) in 2008 and has continued to decrease since then. This development runs counter to the business plans of Japanese corporations that are seeking employees with global experience as they try to branch out and find new markets in other parts of the world.

“There is clearly a mismatch between what the corporate recruiters are looking for and the college job seekers,” whose skills do not match the employers’ requirements, said Hitomi Okazaki, editor in chief of Riku-nabi, the leading job-search Web site in Japan.

     The companies in the country have responded to this by seeking out non-native Japanese employees to fill the gaps. Sony, Samsung, Yamamoto Transport and other companies have begun holding job fairs for students studying abroad in Japan in hopes of landing foreign students that have the global experience that they desire. Many companies have pledged to step up their non-Japanese hiring to 30-80% of their anticipated hires.
      It's interesting that in a global economy so many students would choose not to get more cultured by studying outside of their own country especially when they're being told by perspective employers that it's a requirement to have global experience. Some students may cite that out of country tuition is a lot more costly than staying at home but in the long run spending the cash now on your education most likely would outweigh the student debt they would incur.
     It will be interesting to see if the tactics being employed by the Japanese companies will spark an increase in Japanese student enrollment in study abroad programs. As we inch closer and closer to a more singular global economy I don't think that students will look at it as a luxury but more as a necessity to have overseas experience. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/world/asia/21iht-educLede21.html?_r=1&ref=japan&pagewanted=all