It is still fresh in my memory that earlier this year, news broke that the traditional women's university would suspend recruitment.In recent years, many women's universities and junior colleges have been forced to close due to the declining birthrate and diversifying social needs.However, among them, there is a women's junior college that continues to actively recruit students.That is Toita Women's Junior College.

From under-capacity to a university of choice

We spoke to Taisuke Shibuya, Director of the Entrance Examination and Public Relations Department, about the factors behind the strong recruitment rate.

``Over 10 years ago, Toita Women's Junior College was under capacity, and at one point the number of students enrolled reached 80.From there, we reevaluated our learning and strengths, and began thinking about how we could get high school students to come to our school. ?The school has worked together to create a university that will be chosen by high school students by incorporating learning that is relevant to the times, marketing and branding methods commonly used by companies."

While other schools, especially junior colleges and women's colleges, are struggling to recruit students, Toita Women's Junior College has been attracting a lot of attention for its track record of reaching capacity for 10 consecutive years, and has received inquiries and school tours from universities, vocational schools, and high schools across the country. They say it's happening one after another.

Focus on people and tell stories

From a public relations and marketing perspective, Director Shibuya asserts that the appeal of Toita Women's Junior College is its ``people'' and ``story.''

``The best feature of Toita Women's Junior College is that there is a culture where students can take on various challenges such as corporate collaboration, events, and extracurricular classes immediately after enrolling.Compared to four-year universities, the enrollment period is only two years, so After that, they start running at full speed from the beginning.There are many students like this, and the students around them are inspired to start running, thinking, ``I have to do something too.''There is an image that the content is rich compared to the number of students, but the number will increase year by year to match the number of motivated students.Toita Women's Junior College's public relations program catches up on these many initiatives and projects, and focuses on the charm of the "people" that the recipients can empathize with.

From the start of the project to the end, we create a step-by-step story about the state of mind and behavior at each moment, and release it to the world using all kinds of media, including web articles, YouTube, SNS, and presentations at open campuses. It would be a waste to finish with a single web article reporting that ``the project was completed'' considering the effort that involved so many people.

Nowadays, by making projects easy to understand on video media such as YouTube, students and teachers themselves can naturally increase quality and motivation every year by saying, ``I want to do this more next time'' or ``I want to improve the version more than last year's seniors.'' We also have some tricks. ”

Attractive corporate collaborations and presentations.Current students become fans of the university

Toita Women's Junior College's industry-academia collaboration classes include a wide variety of companies and brands that students have heard of, such as ``Sukiya'', ``WEGO'', ``Lee'', and ``FRESHNESS BURGER''.It takes several months to half a year from planning to implementation.

``For public relations purposes, I am conducting interviews with the intention of presenting all the details of the work, photos, and students' impressions each time.We also request that students and teachers share their thoughts and content at the time and create articles on their blogs. doing.

Not only corporate collaborations, but also other activities, students sometimes clash with each other's opinions, cry when their opinions are not accepted, and finally, the results are released to the world in a tangible form, and in the end, there is a feeling of growth. While working on one project, there are as many dramas as there are students.

It is actually important that by carefully conveying the life-size image of the students, not only the students themselves, but also the students around them who see it, become proud and become fans of Toita Women's Junior College. I think.High school students see this and enroll knowing that they too want to experience that project.We believe that this "circulation" is important for student recruitment.In other words, it's fan marketing through people."