Hitotsubashi University


Hitotsubashi University is a national university specialized in the social sciences in Tokyo, Japan with about 4,500 undergraduate students and about 2,100 postgraduate students. The university has campuses in Kunitachi, Kodaira, and Chiyoda.
Established in 1875 by Arinori Mori, Hitotsubashi is considered the best in economics and commerce related subjects in Japan, consistently ranking amongst the top universities in Japanese university rankings. It was ranked 25th in the world in 2011 by.
Hitotsubashi has strong relationships with overseas universities. There are about 590 international students and 450 researchers from abroad under academic exchange agreements with 83 universities and research institutions, including University of Chicago, the University of Oxford and the University of California.
The university's symbol is inspired by Mercury, Roman mythology's god of commerce.

History

When founded by Arinori Mori in 1875, Hitotsubashi was called the Institute for Business Training, where it nurtured businessmen to modernize Japan after the collapse of the feudal Tokugawa Shōgunate. The last Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu, prior to the end of his reign, sent Eiichi Shibusawa to Europe during the 1860s, where he learned of their advanced banking and economic system and brought it back to modernize Japan. The school expanded gradually with the support of Eiichi Shibusawa and Takashi Masuda and other influential individuals. Shibusawa is regarded as the father of the modern Japanese economy. Eiichi Shibusawa and Tokugawa Yoshinobu's son, Tokugawa Iesato worked together to established a number of large business enterprises, as well as academic institutions and other social service agencies which still active today, while Masuda was the founder of Mitsui & Co., Ltd. Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu was the head of the Hitotsubashi family, and that may well be why in 1949, the school adopted the name of Hitotsubashi University.
There were talks about a merger with The University of Tokyo, but alumni and students objected—the merger was not fulfilled. This is known as the "Shinyu Incident".
Hitotsubashi University has about 4,500 undergraduate and 2,100 postgraduate students with some 630 faculty members.

Undergraduate programs

Parentheses show the numbers of admitted students per year.

Research institutes and centers

As of 2007, Hitotsubashi University had academic exchange agreements with 84 overseas universities and research institutions, including those between departments and departments, as follows:

Academic rankings

Hitotsubashi University is considered as one of the most prestigious universities in Japan, consistently ranking amongst the top universities in Japanese university rankings. It is one of the highest ranked national universities that is not one of the National Seven Universities.
Hitotsubashi is a specialized institution only in social science, thus it is not as well known as other big universities such as University of Tokyo and Kyoto University. Although it has only social science departments and the place in the university rankings is always underrated, the reputation is very high. Consequently, its outstanding position in Japan can be seen in the several rankings below.

General rankings

The university was ranked 7th out of 181 major universities in 2011 in the ranking called "Truly strong universities " by Toyo Keizai. In this ranking, Hitotsubashi is 1st in average graduate salary.
According to QS World University Rankings, Hitotsubashi was ranked 314th, 314th, 420th, 378th and 365th in the world during 2005–2009. It has been ranked 114th, 101st, 99th and 178th during 2007–2010 in its social science ranking.

Research performance

The :ja:週刊ダイヤモンド|Weekly Diamond reported that Hitotsubashi has the 4th highest research standard in Japan in research funding per researcher in :ja:グローバルCOEプログラム|COE Program. In the same article, it is ranked seventh in quality of education by :ja:特色ある大学教育支援プログラム|GP funds per student.
The economics department especially has a high research standard. According to the Asahi Shimbun, Hitotsubashi was ranked 4th in Japan in economic research during 2005–2009. More recently, Repec in January 2011 ranked Hitotsubashi's Economic Department as Japan's 5th best economic research university. Currently three researchers in Hitotsubashi are listed as top 10% economists in its world economist rankings. Hitotsubashi has provided seven presidents of the Japanese Economic Association in its 42-year history; this number is the second largest.
Asahi Shimbun summarized the amount of academic papers in Japanese major legal journals by university, and Hitotsubashi was ranked 7th during 2005–2009.

Graduate school rankings

Hitotsubashi Law School is considered as one of top law schools in Japan, as it was ranked No. 1 in the passing rate of Japanese Bar Examination in 2006, 2008 and 2009.
Hitotsubashi Business School is ranked 2nd in Japan by Nikkei Shimbun.
Eduniversal ranked Japanese business schools and Hitotsubashi was ranked 3rd in Japan. In this ranking, Hitotsubashi is one of three Japanese business schools categorized in "Universal business schools with major international influence". It is one of the few Japanese business schools teaching in English.

Alumni rankings

Hitotsubashi alumni are distinctively successful in Japanese industries such as shown below.
According to the :ja:エコノミスト |Weekly Economist 2010 rankings and the :ja:プレジデント社|President's article on October 16, 2006, graduates from Hitotsubashi have the best employment rate in 400 major companies; the average graduate salary is the second best in Japan. ranks Hitotsubashi University as 25th in the world in 2011 in the number of alumni listed among CEOs in the 500 largest worldwide companies, although Hitotsubashi is small compared to other Japanese universities in the ranks.
The university is ranked 8th in Japan for the number of alumni holding executive positions in the listed companies of Japan, and this number per student is 2nd in Japan.

Popularity and selectivity

Hitotsubashi is one of the most selective universities in Japan. Its entrance difficulty is usually considered as one of the top with University of Tokyo, Kyoto University and Tokyo Institute of Technology among 180 national and public universities.Japanese people call them as "tokyoikko" They are one of the most difficult universities for Japanese people to enter them. Universities in Japan are ranked based on a hensachi score. This tells how far from the statistical mean a typical student admitted to a university scores on a test. A score of 50 is at the mean. It is generally believed that the best universities have the highest hensachi score.These universities are ranked 1st to 4th place. So high school students have to get highest hensachi score to enter them.

Notable faculty

The university's alumni association is called Josuikai and its main building is next to the building where Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy is in Kanda, Tokyo.

Politicians