Weekly Report/ Education: University rush to the suburbs pulls a U-turn

Universities that a decade or more ago expanded into larger campuses in the suburbs are now in retreat, heading back to their city center headquarters as student numbers dwindle.

Upgraded city campuses or entirely new ones situated in convenient downtown locations have opened their doors since the fiscal 2002 lifting of legal restrictions on opening new universities and similar institutions in city centers.

But urban campuses come with a fair share of inconvenience, such as students and staff wasting time waiting for overcrowded elevators in high-rise campus buildings.

At Kyoritsu Women's University's Kanda-Hitotsubashi campus in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward, eight buildings house the school's various departments, in addition to its affiliated junior college and junior and senior high schools. The main building is a 15-story complex completed five years ago.

Until fiscal 2005, all first- and second-year students in some departments attended classes at the school's suburban Hachioji campus, about an hour's train ride from downtown Tokyo. The distance from the main campus made it difficult for the university to add advanced classes for them in those first or second years of study.

Instructors also felt the period spent on travel between the two campuses robbed them of precious time to communicate with students.

By shifting most classes to the city campus, however, the university aimed to not only solve such problems but also bolster its number of applicants.

According to data from the Kawaijuku Educational Institution cram school, Kyoritsu saw a year-on-year jump of 44.6 percent in applicants hoping to enter three departments at its central Tokyo campus for the 2006 school year.

Still, because the main building is a high-rise, it takes time for students and staff to move from one lecture hall to another. The elevator lobbies turn into congested chaos in between classes.

"At one point, staff had to act as traffic wardens," said Makoto Hirai, who heads the university's administrative secretariat.

To ease such inconveniences, the school extended the lunch break to an hour, from the previous 30 minutes, and set six elevators to stop only on the seven floors that are used most by students.

Classes were scheduled so that students would have enough time in between to move between campus buildings.

Kobe, meanwhile, has four universities located on the city's artificial Port Island, offshore of the downtown.

In spring 2007, Kobe Gakuin University, Kobe Shukugawa Gakuin University and Hyogo University of Health Sciences opened campuses on the island, joining Kobe Women's University and its junior college, which were already there.

It is a convenient location, just a 10-minute train ride from Sannomiya Station in central Kobe on a new transit line.

Here, too, the building of new universities or campus expansions had been previously restricted.

Kobe Gakuin moved most of the students enrolled in three of its seven departments here from its suburban Kobe campus. The suburban campus takes about half an hour by bus to reach from the nearest JR station in rush hour. Crowding also grew after the pharmaceutical studies department started to require six years of study.

"A campus in the city center was necessary in these competitive times when the college-age population is decreasing," said Takamasa Nishiwaki, head of the secretariat of the university administration.

Konan University, headquartered in Kobe's Higashi-Nada Ward, also plans to open a new campus on Port Island in spring 2009.

Meanwhile, local governments that had invited universities to open campuses in their regions are not happy to lose them to big cities.

Over a decade ago, the town of Itakura, Gunma Prefecture, gave a 1-billion-yen subsidy to Toyo University, based in Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward, to build a new Itakura campus. It opened in 1997.

But late last year, the institution unveiled a plan to relocate its Department of Regional Development Studies, one of just two departments at Itakura, to Bunkyo Ward in 2009.

Although the Department of Life Sciences will remain at Itakura and is scheduled to expand, residents are worried the whole campus will be downsized. They want the university to keep the student population at its current size.

Toyo University President Tomonori Matsuo came to the town to reassure residents and explain the relocation plan.

"The fact of the matter is, we were able to open the (Itakura) campus with the support of the local people," he said.

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STUDY: MORE STUDENTS IN SUBURBS THAN IN CITY CAMPUSES

Despite efforts by some universities to attract students back to campuses in central Tokyo, their suburban locations continue to have more students than city campuses, according to a study.

Kaori Suetomi, an associate professor of education administration at Fukuoka University of Education, looked at universities with departments in metropolitan Tokyo, where the opening of new institutions in its central 23 wards and nearby districts was restricted until 2002.

The number of students enrolled in departments that were shifted from suburban areas to downtown areas after restrictions were lifted was compared with enrollments in departments moved to the suburbs.

In the 1995-2005 academic years, 4,911 students were enrolled in departments that moved back to central Tokyo, while 26,936 were at departments shifted to areas outside the city core.

Overall, the total number of students fell regardless--6,092 students were enrolled before suburban departments relocated to city areas, and 35,166 were enrolled in downtown departments before they were moved to the suburbs.

Suetomi said a major factor behind the large-scale student drain from the city core is that the parent institutions opted to strengthen ties with outlying regions' local governments and communities, for example, in Tokyo's suburban Tama area and Saitama Prefecture.

At the same time, fewer students from outside Tokyo have enrolled in institutions based in the capital's central areas.

"The prominent feature of student drain to the suburbs and the schools' return to city centers is that most departments were downsized when they relocated," Suetomi said.

--The Asahi Shimbun(IHT/Asahi: May 24,2008)