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Decades after the head start, Japan has also become something of a laboratory for finding solutions to the problem of declining university student numbers—although results so far suggest there are limits to how much can be done to solve this problem.
Japan’s population of 126 million is expected to shrink by more than a quarter in the next forty yearsaccording to the International Monetary Fund.
While the numbers in the United States aren’t dire, they are heading in the same direction, and with increasing speed.
Birth rate in the United States – the number of live births per 1,000 women – It was steadily decliningReports of the National Center for Health Statistics. The total number of births dropped In nine of the 10 years from 2010 and dropped more sharply In 2020, before that by 1 percent In 2021, according to provisional estimates.
This is expected to exacerbate an already unprecedented decline in US college and university enrollment, which has fallen by more than 11 percent, or 2.4 million students, from 2010 during this year. there will be 10 percent decrease in the number of high school graduates from 2026 to 2037, according to the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education. Other forecasts predicted the next decline in the number of 18-year-olds in the United States more than 15 percent.
Even with the worst of the demographic downturns some years in the future, the current enrollment decline has already affected American colleges and universities in ways very similar to what Japanese universities were experiencing, including by closing and merging—especially small ones. regional institutions.
at least 11 universities in Japan closed Down from 2000 to 2020, there have been 29 mergers, compared to just three in the 50 years before that, according to research by Inaba. Another university, Kisen in Tokyo, announced this last month will close Once its current students graduate, noting the steady decline in the number of 18-year-old students.
The most vulnerable were small private universities in rural areas with low “hansashi,” or rankings based on selectivity and graduate job success.
“There are definitely too many universities” for the shrinking student population, Annaba said.
This exacerbated the division in Japan that has also widened in the United States: between rural areas and cities. youth in Japan Abandon rural places in large numbersin favor of big cities like Tokyo; There is little evidence of an aging population in Tokyo’s Shibuya shopping district or Shinjuku’s youthful all-night bars and restaurants.
And because of this immigration, “you will have fewer workers with college degrees [in rural areas] While the urban population is increasing,” Yonezawa said.
The exodus of undergraduates has reduced the number of workers with degrees in rural Japan to such an extent that some rural prefectures have stepped in and It took over failing universities to keep it open.
Also in the US, there are fewer people living in rural areas than in cities with higher education – 21 percent, compared to 35 percent in citiesAccording to the USDA, the Federal Reserve report gap It has tripled since 1970 Exacerbation of social, economic and political divisions.
But instead of enhancing opportunities for rural students, and maintaining a local graduate supply, many rural universities in the United States have been Make huge discounts to the number of programs and majors they offer.
In Japan, there was a special take on tanki daigaku, or junior colleges. Just like American community colleges, with which they are roughly on par, Japanese junior colleges bore the brunt of the enrollment decline. 267 of them are closed or built-in Between 1996 and 2018, out of a total of 598.
Many students in Japan who used to go to middle colleges—especially women, who have opened up more professional opportunities that require four-year degrees—choose to enroll in four-year universities instead. This is something that has prevented their registration from declining any further than it has so far.
Another: While the number of 18-year-olds is declining, the proportion of people pursuing higher education has increased 81 percent.
This is much higher than 62 percent of US high school graduates who go directly to college, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Instead of rising, as it is in Japan, the percentage of American high school graduates is heading straight to college was going downup from 70% in 2016.
Robert Eskildsen, Vice President for Academic Affairs at ICU, said that Japanese universities have now reached an inflection point. The percentage of 18-year-olds entering college probably won’t go up, and there isn’t a lot of potential left to move away from junior colleges.
“What will happen next is that universities will start to feel this pain,” said Eskildsen over tea with colleagues in his office on the pastoral campus in western Tokyo.
A non-sectarian institution built in 1949 on the former grounds of an Army aircraft factory, ICU has ranked highly and remains among the most selective universities in the country, with one of the best hensachis. Taught in both Japanese and English, it attracts not only Japanese students who want to work in jobs that increasingly require proficiency in English as well as children of Japanese citizens who live abroad and need to improve their Japanese.
Inaba said finding fields like those — teaching in English, for example, or adding subjects like animation, marketing and international management — is another way some Japanese universities are dealing with their shrinking market.
Where in the United States It can take years To launch new programs, Japanese universities are rushing to respond to employer and student demand for majors like these, said Yoshito Ishio, a sociologist and dean of ICU’s College of Liberal Arts. This is because they desperately need applicants. “They’re quicker to change because it’s more important,” said Ishio.
Universities have also expanded small-scale partnerships with high schools to create a pipeline specifically for prospective students who gain admission preference without having to take college entrance exams.
The share of students admitted in this way has increased since 2000, from 10 percent to 12 percent in the public sector and from 37 percent to 44 percent in private universities, according to the Ministry of Education.
Other efforts to close the enrollment gap have met with less success. It is difficult to attract international students to Japan, for example, due to the difficulty of the language and competition from other countries.
Less than 3 percent of four-year undergraduate students in Japan They were foreign citizens Before Covid-19, when border restrictions significantly reduced that number, the Education Department reports.
There are warning signs about international students on US universities, too. Even before Covid, the issue coming to the US were flatteningAccording to the Institute of International Education. And while It rebounded a little last year after its fall During the pandemic, there are now concerns about a diminishing flow of students from the most important sending country: China.
Immigration, which can help increase the number of students in a college, is almost non-existent in Japan, where immigrants consist about 2 percent of the population, according to the Migration Services Agency. that it The Road In the United States, too, says the Census Bureau.
Both countries are about to share an unwelcome reality, said Eskildsen.
against ancient Japan shushikorika, Its universities have so far maintained their enrollment “by reducing their competitiveness and putting small colleges out of business. But these strategies are close to their limits,” as American universities face similar threats.
Now, Eskildsen said, “Records are about to start their long slump.”
This story about Declining college enrollment Produced by Hechinger ReportAn independent, nonprofit news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Subscribe to our site Higher education newsletter.
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