About free education

This morning I read from the front page of Daily Yomiuri that:

The Democratic Party of Japan likely will include a policy of raising disposable household income by 20 percent in its manifesto for the next House of Representatives election...

The party plans to achieve the proposed increase by reducing the cost of living through means such as making high school education free. It also will increase direct financial support to households, such as providing a monthly child benefit payment of 26,000 yen for every child until graduation from middle school.
...

Sounds good and quite familiar - in Finland all education is free by constitution and child benefit of about 100 euro is paid until the child turns 17.

See also previous blog posts about Entrance exams to primary schools and about How do we educate our children.