Why not try Canada, eh?: For Japanese students, a university up north is worth considering

In response to a two-part series that I recently penned on the hardships faced by Japanese high school students looking overseas for a college education, one reader offered a suggestion that often gets advanced: "Go to a Canadian university."

And why not? Canada is home to some of the world's best schools for higher education. In fact, the country's top three — the University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia and McGill University — occupied spots 22, 34 and 42 in the 2018 Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

Moreover, Canadians and Japanese generally seem to have positive views of one another. In the GlobeScan/PPC Country Ratings Poll conducted for the BBC World Service in 2017, no country was thought of more positively than Canada. In the same poll, Japan was viewed positively by a larger percentage of Canadians than any other nationality bar the Australians.