With the decreasing number of 18-year-olds and changing perceptions among female students, women’s universities throughout Japan are facing headwinds.

Some of them have stopped accepting applications or have become coeducational, resulting in the number of women’s universities and colleges across the nation to drop to 73 as of April, against around 100 in the 1990s.

In the Tohoku region, only three women’s institutions remain — Miyagi Gakuin Women's University, Sendai Shirayuri Women's College and Koriyama Women's University — while four other schools have become coed.