In an effort to survive whereas the nation's general enrollment of students has been reduced by its consistently low birth rate, Japanese institutions are broadening their scientific offerings. The conventional framework for universities, wherein a large number of students were previously majoring in the liberal arts, might see significant modifications in the future as a result of government initiatives to foster the advancement of skilled labor in digital, decarbonization, and other fields of study. Government forecasts state that by 2030 there will be a 790,000-person IT skills deficit. The government resolved in December to establish a 300 billion fund to establish or extend 300 scientific universities by fiscal 2032 in order to enhance these human resources.
The Ministry of Education, Sports, Culture, Science, and Technology launched a set of two assistance programs. It has picked 118 colleges and universities, several of that are participating in both projects and is going to help them in their attempts to grow the graduate degrees they offer in science, technology, and agriculture along with their teaching staff in these areas. Under one of these two funding schemes that include national universities, 67 organizations were chosen. The ministry is planning a starting investment of up to around 2 billion for each institution for projects which includes the development and restructuring of colleges and departments as well as facility expansions.
Twenty of these organizations lack a scientific department. One of them is Kyoai Gakuen University in Maebashi, which intends to establish a ‘digital green’ faculty in the upcoming fiscal year. “To survive, we need to draw more attention from more prospective students. We applied to the program out of our concern over the future”, University President Akio Omori stated. The Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture-based Higashi Nippon International University seeks to build a ‘digital creation’ department and educate human resources in the technology sector in order to assist with the nuclear power plant accident's recovery.
As an effect of the falling birth rate, universities face greater financial challenges. The Promotion and Mutual Aid Corporation for Private Schools of Japan ran a poll in fiscal 2022, and 47.5% of the private institutions indicated having fewer applications than the number of spots available. Private women's universities have suffered greatly because just 70% of them had enough applications. In fiscal 2025, Otsuma Women's University, which is situated in Tokyo, desires to set up a data science department whereby students would be taught how to gather, arrange, and analyze huge data.
“The number of applicants for humanities and home economics is decreasing”, President Masanao Ito mentioned. “Thinking about what is necessary for women’s universities as schools fall by the wayside, we applied for this program”, he concluded.
