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In 1920, Hitotsubashi was granted university status as Tokyo University of Commerce, becoming Japan’s first national college specialising in commercial studies. It underwent another name change in 1949, adopting its modern name, Hitotsubashi. In 1962, the legal name was formally changed to Hitotsubashi University.[1]
The university has produced numerous senior bureaucrats and politicians for the Japanese government, including Masayoshi Ōhira, who served as the prime minister of Japan.
Founded by Arinori Mori in 1875, Hitotsubashi was initially called the Script error: No such module "Nihongo".. Eiichi Shibusawa was sent to Europe in the 1860s with a scholarship from the Tokugawa shogunate, which was then led by the 15th shogun, Yoshinobu Tokugawa. During his time in Europe, Shibusawa studied European banking and economic systems, which he later brought back to Japan. The school's growth was supported by Shibusawa, Takashi Masuda, and other prominent business figures. The renaming of the school to Hitotsubashi University in 1949 may be linked to its historical ties with the Hitotsubashi branch of the Tokugawa family, headed by Yoshinobu.[2][3] There were plans to merge the institute into the University of Tokyo as part of the economics department in the 1900s, but alumni and students objected—the merger was not fulfilled. This is known as the "Shinyu Incident".[4]
1875: Arinori Mori established Institute for Business Training (商法講習所|Shōhō Kōshūjo) at Ginza-owarichō, Tokyo
1884: became a national school under the direct supervision of the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce of Japan, and changed its name to the Tokyo Commercial School (東京商業学校|Tokyo Shōgyō Gakkō)
1885: came under the control of the Ministry of Education, and absorbed the Tokyo Foreign Language School. The school then relocated to the site of the latter institution in Hitotsubashi, Tokyo in the vicinity of the Imperial Palace
1887: the status of the Tokyo Commercial School was raised to that of the Higher Commercial School (高等商業学校|Kōtō Shōgyō Gakkō)
1897: established affiliated institutions for foreign-language education
1899: separated affiliated institutions for foreign-language education as Tokyo School of Foreign Languages (now Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)
1902: changed its name to the Tokyo Higher Commercial School (東京高等商業学校|Tōkyō Kōtō Shōgyō Gakkō) due to the establishment of another such school in Kansai district (now Kobe University)
1920: raised to and became the Tokyo University of Commerce (東京商科大学|Tōkyō Shōka Daigaku) which is the first university specialised in commerce in Japan
1927: moved to Kunitachi and Kodaira, Tokyo, its present location, on account of the Great Kanto earthquake
1944: changed its name to the Tokyo University of Industry (東京産業大学|Tōkyō Sangyō Daigaku) under the order of the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of Japan
1947: changed its name back to the Tokyo University of Commerce (東京商科大学|Tōkyō Shōka Daigaku)
1949: adopted the new system and the name of Hitotsubashi University (一橋大学|Hitotsubashi Daigaku) through a student ballot, when the American education system was introduced as part of the postwar education reforms, and established Faculties of Commerce, Economics, and Law & Social Sciences
1951: separated Faculty of Law & Social Sciences into Faculty of Law and Faculty of Social Science.
1962: changed Tokyo University of Commerce's legal name to Hitotsubashi University
1996: established the Graduate School of Language and Society
1998: established the Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy (ICS) which is now part of Hitotsubashi Business School (HUB)
2004: corporatized in 2004 as a National University Corporation. Established Law School due to the introduction of Law School system in Japan
2005: established School of International and Public Policy
2018: established Hitotsubashi University Business School (HUB) which includes ICS (SBA)
2019: selected as a "Designated National University"
2023: established School of Social Data Science & Graduate School of Social Data Science
Center for Historical Social Science Literature[10]
Academic exchange agreements overseas
As of 2007, Hitotsubashi University had academic exchange agreements with 84 overseas universities and research institutions, including those between departments and departments, as follows:[11]
Hitotsubashi University is considered 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.
General rankings
The THE World University Rankings ranked the university in the 1201st-1500th tier worldwide in 2024.[12] The university is ranked 539th worldwide in the QS World University Rankings 2025, with particularly high evaluations in economics and business management.[13]
Research performance
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.[14] More recently, Repec in January 2011 ranked Hitotsubashi's Economic Department as Japan's 5th best economic research university.[15] Currently three researchers in Hitotsubashi are listed as top 10% economists in its world economist rankings.[16] Hitotsubashi has provided seven presidents of the Japanese Economic Association in its 42-year history; this number is the second largest.[17]
Graduate school rankings
In 2019, Hitotsubashi Law School became 2nd out of all the 72 law schools in Japan according to the ratio, 59.82%, of the successful graduates who passed the bar examination.[18][19]
Hitotsubashi Business School is ranked 2nd in Japan by Nikkei Shimbun.[20]Eduniversal ranked Japanese business schools and Hitotsubashi was ranked 3rd in Japan (100th in the world).[21] 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
Mines ParisTech : Professional Ranking World Universities 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.[22]
↑Private universities apply different kind of exams. Thus it is only comparable between universities in the same category.
↑E.g. Yoyogi seminar published Hensachi (the indication showing the entrance difficulties by prep schools) rankings Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
↑In this ranking for example, Hitotsubashi Law course has the entrance difficulty of 90%, which is the top with University of Tokyo, and Economics course in Hitotsubashi as 2nd with 89%.
↑Japanese journalist Kiyoshi Shimano ranks its entrance difficulty as SA (most selective/out of 11 scales) in Japan. Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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