Notes from Northern Japan: 1.

Can Local Universities Address Rural Youth Depopulation?

Spring is the season of entrance exams, from elementary schools all the way up to universities. Entrance exams are important for any university, but for an outlying university such as Hirosaki University, established in Hirosaki City, Aomori Prefecture in 1949, they take on special significance. Indeed, there has been increasing worry about attracting a sufficient number of applicants to the university, as Japan is experiencing a decline in its youth population. A new wrinkle to the nature of applicants and entrants for Hirosaki University came to light recently, as reported in a March 7 東奥日報 newspaper article: the percentage of entrants that originate from within Aomori Prefecture. For the academic year beginning March 2025, the overall rate of From Aomori entrants will be just 36 percent.
 
Aomori Prefecture is the northern-most prefecture of Honshu, 8th largest in size but 31st in population, with approximately 1.18 million residents. About 45 percent of the population live in its two major cities, Aomori and Hachinohe, both of which now have Shinkansen stations. That said, Hirosaki, with a population of 163,000, is home to the prefecture’s national university, which has faculties dedicated to Humanities, Education, Agriculture, Engineering, and Medicine. Hirosaki University has somewhere around 6,800 students and just under 600 faculty members—remember that the figure for faculty includes a large number of medical professionals. As for the entrance exam admission results, as above, the overall percent of successful applicants living in Aomori Prefecture is 36 percent—just a couple percentage points over one in three.
 
The highest rate of From Aomori entrants this spring will be in the Faculty of Education, at 50 percent, partly as the Prefectural Board of Education rewards teacher applicants who grew up in the prefecture when it is time to test—and then employ—for teaching positions. Next in order is the Faculty of Humanities, where the percentage was 47. Engineering and Agriculture will see 35 and 32 percent of entrants this spring come from the prefecture. For the Medical School, the two Medical Studies divisions saw a 26 Aomori-native percentage, with the two tracks for Medical School itself presenting a startling result. For the Medical School track with a tuition waiver—limited to 20 entrants and requiring a ten-year in-prefecture service contract, meaning a graduating doctor commits to working in the prefecture for ten years—the Aomori native figure was 30 percent. However, for the ordinary entrance track, which accepts 50 students, the From Aomori portion was… wait for it… zero. In other words, there will be no students from Aomori Prefecture entering the Hirosaki University Medical School Medical Course in spring 2025.
 
The numbers underlying these percentages are in the hundreds: 100 total for education, 170 for humanities, 135 for agriculture and 210 for engineering. Add in the 200-plus for the Medical Faculty and the total is stark: of the 820-some entrants to Hirosaki University this spring, under 300 will be from the prefecture itself. Considering this against population gain and loss, according to one set of data, in 2023, Tokyo experienced a gain of some 58,500 new residents. The same year, Aomori Prefecture lost 5,500 residents. So, according to the above published entrance examination data, from April, Aomori will be picking up about 530 new ‘residents’ coming to Hirosaki University to study… a small dent in the 5,000 who will leave.
 
It is a usual pattern that students from ‘far up north’ in Japan migrate south for university—the question is how far south they go… the Hokkaido high school students look to Tohoku and the Tohoku students look to Tokyo. As I work at Hirosaki University, I can also attest to the fact that there is a fair bit of inter-Tohoku migration as well: students from one Tohoku prefecture going to university in another. However, I have gotten a sense recently that there are an increasing number of high school students from Kanto who are migrating up to Tohoku, including northern-most Aomori prefecture. This could be because some urban youth would like to spend some time somewhere else—getting away from the big city perhaps—and experience the festivals and the winters and the mountains… or it could be due to the dynamics of university entrance competition. The question for outlying universities in the northern areas of Japan is: could attracting urban students to rural universities be a new counter-strategy to rural de-population?

Image 1: Toonippo (Too Daily News), March 7, 2025: "36% of University Entrants from within the Prefecture." (Source: Anthony Rausch).

地産地消: Updated and Expanded

地産地消 (chisan-chisho) is the shortened catch-phrase for 地域生産・地域消費 (chiikiseisan—chiikishohi), an idea born in 1981 by the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF; 農林水産省) to encourage local consumption of local agricultural and aquacultural products and local natural resources.
 
As the program has evolved to its present form, it has led to stricter local product monitoring and reduced distribution burdens for local products as well as an explosion of local products sales sites—the now ubiquitous 道の駅 (michi no eki). For local consumers, the idea and practice of 地産地消 means fresh fruits, vegetables and seafood, a revitalisation of the local economy, and a heightened sense of local identity. At a larger scale, the idea—and practice—of local production and local consumption reduces transport costs and the associated environmentally-harmful emissions.
 
Fast-forward to 2025 and I find newspaper adverts and posters around town announcing The Start of Chisei-Chisho Music Festival （地産地消の音楽祭が始まります). The newspaper announcement tells us the idea of this music festival was born out of simple conversations among local musicians and music lovers hoping to ‘plant seeds of music in Aomori in anticipation that Aomori musical flowers will bloom.’ The summer schedule includes four 出前 concerts, or outreach events at local schools and shopping malls, two chamber music performances, a family concert event, and a full orchestra concert.
 
While one should never argue against the promotion of music—in this case classical music—I find it an interesting extension of the chisan-chisho idea. One could question whether the pieces and performers are capitalising on locally-produced culture—the chisan part of the equation; one could also question the degree to which the chisho element is contributing to the local economy beyond the event itself. Perhaps cultural chisan-chisho could more strictly define the products it promotes: after all, Aomori does have its own cultural commodities—Tsugaru shamisen as a local musical tradition and numerous prefectural-based craft products.

Figure 2: Advertisemt for the Chisei-Chisho Music Festival (Source: Anthony Rausch).

Article copyright Anthony Rausch.

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