Sophia University — photo 1 Sophia University — photo 2 Sophia University — photo 3
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Sophia University

Tokyo, Japan
Founded 1913
International 1,861
Core campuses 3

University overview

Sophia University was founded in Tokyo in 1913 by the Society of Jesus and remains a Jesuit university; its name is the Greek for wisdom, and the Japanese 上智 renders the same idea. All nine faculties sit on a single campus at Yotsuya in central Tokyo, and every English-taught programme is taught there. About 13% of its students are international, one of the highest shares of any private university in Japan. Its English-taught teaching runs from the Faculty of Liberal Arts and the Sophia Program for Sustainable Futures at undergraduate level through the Graduate Program in Global Studies, Global Environmental Studies, TESOL and Education. English-taught tuition is higher than the Japanese-taught rate.

Academic scale

9 faculties with 29 departments, and 10 graduate programmes with 25 majors — all of them on one campus at Yotsuya
13 English-taught programmes listed here — 4 undergraduate and 9 graduate
14,072 students as of 1 May 2025 — 12,419 undergraduate and 1,653 graduate. Sophia publishes the two separately and prints no combined total.

Global community

1,861 international students, about 13% of the university — one of the highest shares of any private university in Japan

Three core campuses

Yotsuya Campus Sophia's main campus and, for practical purposes, the whole university — all nine faculties and every English-taught programme on one city site, a few minutes' walk from Yotsuya station in central Tokyo.
Mejiro Seibo Campus The second teaching campus, beside Seibo hospital in Shimo-Ochiai and the site of the former Seibo College of Nursing. It teaches the Department of Nursing, in Japanese only.
Hadano Campus A green campus in the Kanagawa hills, 70 km from Yotsuya, holding the Junior College Division — a separate two-year Japanese-taught institution which stopped enrolling students in AY2025 — plus a seminar house and sports ground.

More facts

1913 founded by the Society of Jesus, and still a Jesuit university — its name is the Greek for wisdom, and 上智 renders the same idea in Japanese
Every English-taught programme is taught at Yotsuya, in central Tokyo. Sophia is unusual in housing all nine of its faculties on a single city campus.
¥1,442,000 a year in tuition for the Faculty of Liberal Arts and SPSF after year one, against ¥1,206,000 for Sophia's Japanese-taught faculties — the English-taught programmes cost ¥236,000 a year more.
¥1,668,650 in the first year for Liberal Arts and ¥1,644,650 for SPSF, both including a ¥200,000 entrance fee. DGTech's tuition is not yet published; its first intake is April 2027.
University figures verified 8 Sep 2026

Funding

5 external scholarships name this university among their designated schools.

This university’s own scholarships and tuition reductions are not listed here — the source excludes them. Check the university directly.

University sources (5)