In addition to newly established undergraduate departments, four private universities have applied for new establishment, including the National University of Science and Tokyo University of Science.

　Universities and faculties that are scheduled to be newly established for the 2025 entrance exam are listed on the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's website. However, as they are sometimes posted in multiple locations, at this stage, the list of 2025 national and public university additions and the 2025 major private university admissions list are available on Sundai Preparatory School's website ``University Entrance Examination Information.'' I think the "Additional List" is easy to understand.

　The focus is on the newly established Tokyo University of Science. Although it is a new institution, it will be established as a result of the merger of Tokyo Institute of Technology and Tokyo Medical and Dental University, so there will be no changes to the curriculum or student capacity. Exactly one year ago, it was frequently covered in various media, but recently there has been little coverage and it has been almost forgotten, but now a national science university will finally be born. I think it will be a while before we see the benefits of integration for students in terms of education, but in terms of research, I think we will see results sooner than most people expected.

　Now, the establishment of new information systems is noticeable at national and public universities, and the effects of the ``University and Technical College Functional Strengthening Support Project'', a measure aimed at growing the digital green field, can be seen everywhere. In addition to Akita University's Faculty of Information and Data Science and Yamagata University's Social Co-Creation Digital Academic Initiative, a Faculty of Systems and Information Science will be established at Kobe University. Kobe University's School of Systems and Information Science has a large enrollment capacity of 150 students, which is likely to affect the number of applicants and the ratio of applicants to private universities in the Kinki region for science and engineering departments. However, this is a reorganization of the current Faculty of Engineering's Department of Information and Intelligence Engineering (enrollment capacity of 107 students). Although the enrollment capacity will increase, the impact is likely to be limited. Additionally, a new semiconductor systems program will be established at Hiroshima University's Faculty of Engineering. According to the website of the National Institute for University Reform and Academic Degrees, an independent administrative institution that provides funding for the ``University and Technical College Functional Strengthening Support Project,'' the enrollment capacity is 65 students. Combined with the increase in admission capacity for the Department of Information Science, Faculty of Information Science (from 155 to 200), the admission capacity for information science will be 265, which will expand the number of applicants.

　In addition, the Department of Dinosaurs and Geology, Faculty of Dinosaurology, Fukui Prefectural University (enrollment capacity: 30 students), which is expected to be frequently covered in the media in the future, is also planned to be established. This Dinosaur Department has also been selected for the ``University/Technical College Function Enhancement Support Project.'' Additionally, applications have been made to establish four new private universities: Tokyo Management University, Barrier-Free Liberal Arts University, ZEN University, and Hakata University.

Sundai Preparatory School University Entrance Examination Information
https://www2.sundai.ac.jp/yobi/sv/news/index.html
Selected for FY2020 as part of the Universities Reform Support and Academic Degrees Granting Organization (Independent Administrative Agency) University/Technical College Functional Strengthening Support Project
https://www.niad.ac.jp/josei/report/r5selection/

Science departments and women's colleges are also active among private universities.

　If you check the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's website for the four newly established universities, all three universities except Hakata University will have correspondence courses. For this reason, it is thought that the target of student recruitment is not only high school students but also working adults, and ZEN University in particular has applied to establish a faculty of intelligence and information society with an enrollment capacity of 4. I thought I had made a mistake, so I double-checked, but the enrollment capacity is 3. Although this is one-third of the 5,000 students enrolled in all subjects at The Open University, it is also large-scale since Chuo University's Faculty of Law correspondence course, which made headlines this spring for the graduation of a famous person, has an enrollment capacity of 5,000 students. You could say it's a faculty. The establishment is the Nippon Foundation Dwango Gakuen, an educational corporation that operates correspondence-based N High School and S High School, so the university's public relations activities include frequent online open campus and information sessions. is appearing.

　Now, if you look at the new additions of undergraduate departments at private universities on the Sundai Preparatory School website, science and engineering, information, and medical fields stand out. However, what stands out even more is the movement of women's universities. I have previously written in this column that rather than women's universities being unpopular, it is the humanities and life sciences faculties established at women's universities that are unpopular, but there is an active movement to reorganize them. Otsuma Women's University (Data Science), Jissen Women's University (Environmental Design), Seisen Women's University (Comprehensive Culture) (Global Citizenship), Tokyo Women's University (Modern Liberal Arts), Japan Women's University (Food Science), Ferris University (Global Liberal Arts) ), Konan Women's University (Psychology), Kobe Women's University (Life and Environment), Kobe Women's University (Education), Mukogawa Women's University (Environmental Symbiosis), Yasuda Women's University (Science and Engineering), as well as top women's universities in the region. Faculty reorganization will take place nationwide. *Faculty name in parentheses

　Furthermore, some women's universities are changing their names to become co-educational. Even high school teachers may not understand at first when students ask about the university in question. The main ones are Seisen University (before change: Seisen Jogakuin University, Nagano Prefecture), Nagoya Aoi University (before change: Nagoya Women's University), and Kobe Shoin University (before change: Kobe Shoin Women's University). In March of last year, traditional women's universities in the Tokyo metropolitan area announced that they would suspend student recruitment, and the headwinds facing women's universities became a hot topic. If you look at the current status of applications for establishment of departments, etc., you can see that each women's university was moving quickly at that time. This means that the competitive environment is extremely tough.

Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology List of universities scheduled to open in 7
https://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/shingi/daigaku/toushin/1422579_00006.htm

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology strengthens regulations, but universities are responding to them

　Starting last year, some of the procedural documents for newly established universities starting in 2025 have been changed, effectively tightening regulations. New universities and faculties must indicate their ``prospects for securing students'' when applying and submitting notifications, and for this purpose they conduct a survey of high school students to collect data indicating that there are more applicants than the number of admissions capacity. The new rules required for aggregating this survey are commonly known in the industry as 5-fold cross tabulation.

　The 5-fold cross is a process that narrows down the results to ``career path after graduation'', ``national, public, private'', ``field of study'', ``desired to take entrance exams'', and ``desired to enroll'' in that order. The student's ``career path after graduation'' must be university, the ``academic field'' they are interested in must match the academic field of the faculty that will be established, and the answer for ``do they wish to take the exam?'' was ``taking the exam as their first choice.'' We are requesting that this be included in the aggregation. Generally speaking, very few students choose newly established universities as their first choice. In the first place, when asked whether they would like to attend a national, public, or private school, the number of students who would answer "private" is thought to be quite small, except in urban areas. These rule changes were expected to have a suppressive effect on the movement of new and expanded facilities, but it appears that each university is making efforts to comply with the new rules.

　Specifically, they seem to be taking measures such as significantly increasing the number of high schools that request questionnaire surveys. This is a simple method of increasing the number of schools that would previously have asked 100 schools to complete a survey to 1,000 schools. This will increase the effort on the high school side and the cost on the university side, but since it is a rule, we have no choice but to deal with it. However, an increasing number of high schools are unable to participate in the questionnaire survey because it is a burden on them as well. Therefore, if the enrollment capacity is large, it may not be possible to collect the necessary number of applicants through a questionnaire survey.

　Some have pointed out that this rule itself is far from reality, as it is impossible to know in advance the number of consumers who want to buy a new product based on the amount of production. Although the burden on universities may be unavoidable under the current circumstances, I am humbled by the efforts made by high schools in cooperating with the survey. As someone who examines installations, I don't think they can easily change the rules that have been set, but I don't think they are fools, so I hope that in the future, operations such as the interpretation of aggregated data will become more flexible. I think that I want to do it.

Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Guide for preparing documents to be submitted related to university establishment etc. (for establishment in 7)
https://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/koutou/ninka/1422217_00010.htm