For the first time, more than half of Japan’s private universities were unable to fill their enrollment quotas for the school year that began in April.

Enrollment shortfalls are particularly serious for small universities in rural areas.

At the root of the problem is the nation’s declining birthrate. Over the past 30 years, the number of 18-year-olds in Japan has shrunk by more than 40 percent, while the number of private universities has surged by 60 percent.

A growing number of universities, particularly in rural areas, have been struggling to fill empty classroom seats.

In addition, as the nation has emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic, young people have felt a sense of liberation and a decreasing number of them avoid enrolling in universities in urban areas.

Furthermore, large private universities have ramped up the number of successful applicants after the government took measures to ease the strict regulations concerning admission quota management in response to confusion among applicants during the pandemic.

Private universities depend on student tuition for about 80 percent of their revenue. Sharp enrollment shortfalls will hurt their financial health over the years.

Many universities have failed to deal with the crisis effectively, although they have taken steps such as cutting their enrollment quotas or creating new departments.

Additionally, starting next year, the government will, in principle, exclude universities from a program to provide financial support to students of low-income families if universities fail to fill at least 80 percent of their enrollment quotas in each of the past three fiscal years.

A total of 155 universities, or 26 percent of all institutions, have failed to hit the 80-percent target.

If the enrollment crisis continues unabated, the disparity in educational opportunities between large cities and rural areas could widen.

There are universities that have given up their goal of providing high-quality education and are only focusing on their survival. These universities should decide to shut down while they still have the capacity to send out their current students.

On the other hand, there are many universities in rural areas that focus on training students to become leaders in their local communities even if they do not score high in written exams or training child care and nursing care workers who are in short supply.

Without these schools, the local communities would lose vitality, and children from rural families that could not afford to allow them to live away from home to attend universities would be forced to change their career paths.

Since state subsidies for private schools are determined based on size-related factors such as the number of students, the amount of public funds saved by small universities falling off the map is small. For Japan’s future, the losses caused by university closures in rural areas would be far greater.

Universities aiming to secure sufficient numbers of students in rural areas need to strengthen their cooperation with the communities where they are located to have their presence and educational features recognized by local residents.

They need to build effective working relationships with local governments, industries and residents as they explore ways to contribute to the local communities by making use of their unique features and resources, such as by utilizing research results.

It is also crucial to accept more working adults who want to acquire new knowledge and motivated international students. Students who enroll at the age of 18 and working adults and international students can inspire and learn from each other if they attend classes sitting side by side.

If rural areas become increasingly devoid of vigor, Japan’s sustainable development will be in jeopardy. To tackle this complicated challenge, the government needs ideas that go beyond education.

One idea that merits serious consideration would be to count the levels of contributions that private universities are making to the local communities as one of the factors for determining the amount of subsidies granted to them.

That means in determining its support to private universities, the government should consider factors that have not been traditionally considered such as the ratio of students who join the local workforce and the number of local challenges they are tackling.

The government needs to develop a new approach to providing aid to universities based on a new, different viewpoint.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Sept. 17