As highlighted in the White Paper on International Economy and Trade 2010 published by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Asia’s middle-income population – households with disposable income of 5,000 U.S. dollars or more and less than 35,000 U.S. dollars – is forecast to expand in the next ten years.
10 This confluence of higher enrollments, higher tuitions, reduced family resources, and uneven job prospects has caused outstanding student loan balances to more than double since the start of the Great Recession. 11 Moreover, this sharp rise in debt burdens is unevenly distributed across the population, with students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds disproportionately likely to use debt to finance education.