This chapter will look at how Japanese universities are ranked domestically. The key measure of internal rankings is the hensachi system, which first appeared in the 1960s as a de facto measure for scholastic achievement. From the mid-1970s onwards, hensachi increasingly came to be seen as the source of many educational "evils" in Japan, but predictions of its demise have proven to be premature-despite attempts to set up alternative domestic ranking systems such as by graduation and employment rates.
