Truly Strong Universities

The "Truly Strong Universities" (Japanese: 本当に強い大学, Hepburn: Hontōni Tsuyoi Daigaku^?) is a ranking of Japan’s top 100 universities by publisher Toyo Keizai released annually in its business magazine of the same name. "Toyo Keizai" means "Oriental Economy".

There are several lists ranking Japanese universities, often called Hensachi, with most measuring them by their entrance difficulty, or by their alumni's successes. The Hensachi Rankings have been most commonly used as a reference for a university's rank.

Given this context, "Truly Strong Universities" (TSU) is a unique ranking system which ranks Japanese universities using eleven multidimensional indicators related to financial strength, education and research quality, and graduate prospects. It does not include any indicator of entrance difficulty. The system attempts to evaluate the university's strengths and the performance of its alumni, rather than students' prior academic abilities, or the brand of the college.

Toyo Keizai first published the "TSU" rankings in 2000. Its initial aim was to analyze private universities as companies, and conduct a financial analysis of them, which had rarely been attempted before by other mass-media. It also tried to focus on a practical point of view such as business-academia collaboration, students' academic achievements, and career support.

In 2004, the ranking system was reorganized with more multidimensional factors to capture universities not only as business organizations but also as educational and research institutions. In 2005, the report began to analyze national universities; they have been included in the rankings since 2006.

The "TSU" ranking is designed to assess a university's strength as an organization. It uses eleven indicators in three categories. The eleven indicators contribute equally to the rankings after the calculation of standardized scores. "TSU" picked 181 major Japanese universities for its evaluation.

The financial strength concept consists of "Applicants' increasing ratio (%)", "Recurring profit margin (%)", "External fund gaining ratio (%)" and "Capital adequacy ratio (%)".

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