What's a university degree worth in Japan? About $25,500 a year

What’s a university degree worth in Japan? About $25,500 a year based on starting salaries for new graduates, and the figure has barely budged over the past decade. 

That’s about half what their counterparts start out on in the US, where pay for new graduates has climbed 8 percent since 2007, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

When graduates opened their first monthly paychecks earlier this year, on average they received 213,000 yen ($1,885), before tax, according to a survey by the Keidanren business lobby group. An annual bonus will likely take earnings for the year to about 2.9