People who use the Tokyu Toyoko Line, which connects Tokyo and Yokohama, may wonder why there are stations called Toritsu-Daigaku and Gakugei-Daigaku when there are no daigaku (universities) near them. There used to be a Gakugei Daigaku (Tokyo Gakugei University) but it moved to Koganei in 1964. There were plans to build a Toritsu Daigaku (Tokyo Metropolitan University), but they were never realized. In fact, if you look at any train line map in Japan you're bound to find at least one station with daigaku or gakuen (academy) in the name. Former Seibu president Yoshiaki Tsutsumi supposedly named one station on the Seibu Ikebukuro Line Oizumi Gakuen because he wanted to persuade universities to open campuses in the area. None did. The name remained, however, as did Hitotsubashi-Gakuen on the Seibu Tamako Line, even though the school never took the bait.

Universities represent prestige, which is why so many local governments — and developers — try to attract them to their regions. It's an industry, though no longer a growth one, and the new Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Makiko Tanaka, found herself on the bad side of that industry when she exercised her ministerial prerogatives two weeks ago and refused to approve the opening of three new schools. In order to operate as a four-year institution of higher learning, an educational entity must first be vetted by a panel of experts and then approved by the education minister, but Tanaka thought there were "problems" with the three schools' business plans and withheld approval. The universities had assumed this process was nothing more than a formality and had already accepted students for their first terms. They accused Tanaka of political grandstanding. In the end, she was forced to reverse her decision and grant approval.

A number of publications have run articles in the last week asserting that Tanaka was right in withholding approval. When the story first broke, the tenor of the coverage implied that Tanaka was making headlines for the sake of headlines; that she simply wanted to reinforce her image as the only major politician who stands up to entrenched bureaucratic interests. The three aggrieved institutions adopted this narrative to fight back, as did the opposition Liberal Democratic Party, which didn't need an excuse to complain about a member of the cabinet.