Of course, its very beneficial to the eikaiwas too, bringing their courses into a more competitive price range.

That’s the only thing that matters. Market studies show that issues like scheduling convenience, price, location, even advertizing come above quality of instruction or actual English study in potential customers’ rankings of what’s important in choosing a school. If Nova can’t compete on price, it really has nothing to offer.

About the government assistance. I think its usually called Kyufukin. To qualify for this government aid, the student has to have been in employment for the last 5 years, I.E. paying into the National insurance and stuff. Then they qualify for a max of 200,000 yen of aid from the government. it used to be higher. All eikaiwas offer this program. The government liscences individual courses, making them eligible for the aid.
The students pay the full whack up front, and when the course is finished, all 1 year courses, they need to have an 80% attendance rate, and pass a diddy English test, just to show they took it seriously, and actually learned something. They can then apply to the government for the 200,000 yen aid to be re-inbursed. The cash actually goes to the student. Of course, its very beneficial to the eikaiwas too, bringing their courses into a more competitive price range.

I know what you mean about 億, Matt. I know full well that it’s 100 million, but I still second-guess myself. (I should have done so this morning. Or read carefully.)

I’m still surprised at the number of students I have, at a top university, who speak English pretty well, and are crippled by numbers. I guess there’s something to be researched there - maybe we don’t think of numbers in their Arabic numeral forms, but as words. Numbers are the main thing I find myself translating in my head: “千万 is a thousand ten-thousands, so that’s ten millions, which is ten million.” (Yes, it is sometimes that painfully slow, too.)

Sorry again for calling you on a mistake you hadn’t made.

At 85 yen a share?

The sum you cite is correct. Garrett has missed a zero. The newspapers say １６０億９０００万円, or 16,090,000,000, so let’s call it 16 billion. An easy way to convert numbers written with kanji is to type them in Japanese (if you can), and then hit the henkan key. It’ll show you the “long form” of the number.

However, the Kyodo article seems to confirm the figure.