2017 Volume 20 Pages 51-70
The background to this paper is a decline in the 18-year-old population in Japan as a whole, with the exception of the Tokyo metropolitan area. Against this background, the paper, on the basis of an analysis of the regional variations in the decision to progress to higher education, analyzes the potential impact on opportunities for higher education in Japan of a new public policy, currently under consideration, designed to regulate and influence the location of universities.
Using the data in the School Basic Survey, an analysis of time series data by region puts the main focus on changes in the statistics of the traditional college-age population, the location of high schools from which all college entrants graduated, and the location of the colleges and universities in which they matriculated. The analysis suggests that if a new policy limiting the potential for the establishment or expansion of colleges and universities in Tokyo is implemented, the concentration of college students in the Tokyo metropolitan area might be mitigated by a decrease in female students from the Tokyo metropolitan area or in entrants from provincial areas near Tokyo such as Kita-Kanto.
