According to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's ``Reiwa 8 National University Enrollment Capacity (Scheduled)'' released on August 31, the enrollment capacity of national universities will increase by 6 people next fiscal year.Depending on the region and faculty system, recruitment of students at private universities will be affected.According to materials from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of students in science and engineering fields.Approximately 440% of the increased number of students will be in science and engineering departments, so it is likely that the admission process rate for successful applicants will be lower than in previous years for science and engineering departments at mid-sized private universities.
The total enrollment capacity for new faculties at national universities is 241 students.
In recent years, new faculties have been established at national universities, and four new faculties are scheduled to be established for the 2024 entrance exam <Table 241>.The total enrollment capacity is 2024 students, but the University of Tsukuba's School of Interdisciplinary Science and Design has an annotation in the original document that states it is a ``faculty established in a foreign country.''If you search for ``Interdisciplinary Science and Design College'' on the University of Tsukuba's homepage, you will find an article about the overseas branch in Malaysia, which is expected to open in September 9, so this seems to be a new school.Since the University of Tsukuba is located overseas, excluding these 40 students, the new faculty will have a capacity of 201 domestic students.
In fact, the enrollment capacity of these new departments is not a net increase.Utsunomiya University, Chiba University, and Ochanomizu University are all reducing the enrollment capacity of other faculties to create capacity for new faculties.In that respect, it is not a direct threat to student recruitment at private universities.However, if the admission capacity of a faculty decreases, the number of successful applicants will decrease accordingly, so if you think about it normally, the expected difficulty of the entrance exam will increase.
As a result, if examinees behave differently than before, it will change the admission process rate of private universities, so it cannot be said that there is no impact.Among the faculties that have reduced their admission capacity, the number of admissions has decreased significantly and is likely to affect the difficulty of the entrance exam: Utsunomiya University Faculty of Engineering (315 → 290, -25), Chiba University Faculty of Engineering (620 → 540, - 80 people).The new faculties at both universities, Utsunomiya University (Faculty of Data Science Management) and Chiba University (Faculty of Information and Data Science), are in fields similar to engineering, where enrollment capacity has decreased, so the scope of the impact may be limited.
National universities increasing enrollment capacity by 469 people
New faculties have a net increase in enrollment capacity of 0, but there are some universities that have a net increase in enrollment capacity. Looking at the number of national universities increasing their admission capacity in <Table 469>, there is a total of XNUMX students.
However, all of these are not net increases; of these, the University of Miyazaki has reduced the admission capacity of the Faculty of Agriculture by 20 people, so the admission capacity as a university is plus or minus 0.Also, although it appears that Ibaraki University's admission capacity has increased by 34 students, in reality, these admission capacity will be used to establish new educational programs, so the admission capacity will not actually increase.
These increases in admission capacity are equal to the number of students reduced by 40 students in the Department of Mechanical Systems Engineering, Faculty of Engineering.Therefore, we temporarily increased the enrollment capacity for these departments, then reduced them again, and created new educational programs using that amount.Although we are allocating the capacity in a very roundabout way, this will result in the establishment of the Regional Future Co-Creation Academic Circle (enrollment capacity: 40 students).Looking at Ibaraki University's website, it says, ``The Regional Future Co-Creation Initiative offers ``learning across disciplines and the arts and sciences centered on business and data science, as well as practical training to solve regional issues and create new value.'' It is said that the curriculum will be a collaboration between the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Faculty of Engineering, and the Faculty of Agriculture, which all contributed the enrollment capacity.
Quiet talk. In <Table 40>, except for Ibaraki University and Miyazaki University, all other universities will have a net increase in enrollment capacity.As is obvious, there are many science and engineering departments.Leading universities also stand out.Hokkaido University, Tohoku University, Tokyo Institute of Technology, and other universities are increasing their capacity by 50 to 40 people, which is expected to have a significant impact on other universities.The 40 students at Kanazawa University and the XNUMX students at Oita University have a huge impact on private universities in the same area or nearby areas.No, even national and public universities are affected.
It is said that students taking the 2024 entrance exam will become more safety-oriented in anticipation of the following year's 2025 entrance exam (the first year of the new course entrance exam).However, in terms of science and engineering, it is more likely that those who take the exam with a challenge-oriented attitude will get better results, even at difficult national universities and difficult private universities where the number of successful applicants is expected to increase due to the increase in the number of applicants (increased number of successful applicants). Looks like you can get it.
The increase in admission capacity for science and engineering is also influenced by support projects from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
The reason why the number of admissions for science and engineering majors has increased so much is due to the projects of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.This is the ``University/Technical College Functional Strengthening Support Project.''This is a project that supports science, engineering, and digital fields, which is said to be a ``3000 billion subsidy'' in the university industry.The recent increase in admission capacity for science and engineering is a result of being selected for this support project, so it can be said that it has a strong policy-induced aspect.Other universities selected for the project will also establish new faculties in the future, so it is expected that new faculties will continue to be established and enrollment capacity will continue to increase. (Published on the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's website).
These moves are good for prospective students, as they have more options to choose from, but for medium-sized private universities, combined with the declining population, it means that recruiting students will become more difficult year by year.Various estimates have been made regarding this population decline, and in particular, the data that Recruit Advancement Research Institute has carefully totaled for each grade in the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's school basic survey and published on its website is based on the data for each prefecture and gender. You can also check the numbers, which is most helpful.As an aside, in the past, it was possible to predict the 18-year-old population by simply looking at the number of high school students, junior high school students, and elementary school students in each grade in the basic school survey, but now As the number of schools and school types has increased, the amount of calculation effort has more than doubled.
Now, the data from Recruit Advancement Research Institute is based on a basic school survey, so it is a prediction up to 2034.Looking at this, it appears that although the 18-year-old population in the Tokyo metropolitan area is decreasing gradually, it is maintaining a certain size.If you look at the graph, the trend is downward, but the slope is gentle, so university officials in the Tokyo metropolitan area may be somewhat relieved.
However, to consider the future after 2035, if you draw a graph using the number of births by prefecture from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare's demographic survey rather than the school basic survey, the slope will be different.The decline in the 18-year-old population will be greater than ever, including in Tokyo.Of course, there are transfers and transfers, so the number of births in each prefecture will not directly change to the 18-year-old population of that prefecture, etc., but there is no doubt that the environment will be more difficult for all universities than currently expected. It seems so.
[Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology] Continued support through funds to strengthen the functions of universities and technical colleges that drive growth fields
https://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/koutou/kinoukyouka/index.html
[Recruit Advancement Research Institute] Trends in 18-year-old population, advancement rate, and retention rate
https://souken.shingakunet.com/research/18/
