Graduate early from Japanese university?

Hi, I'm pretty sure the answer to this is a hard �gNo" due to Japanese education being highly structured, but wanted to inquire anyway. I was just wondering if it is possible for Japanese university students pursuing their bachelor's degree to take extra classes to graduate early like some American students do. For example in the USA some people finish their B.A. in three years instead of four by taking really heavy course loads, or sometimes you read those stories in the news about some child prodigy graduating from Harvard in like 2 years because they took tons of classes or whatever. Just wondering if anything like this ever happens in Japan or if its just completely structured at four years with absolutely no room for changing things.

For clarification I'm not talking about MEXT or any international student programs, study abroad, etc. I'm more interested in the traditional Japanese degree program that the Japanese complete.

Thanks for reading

The answer is slightly complicated to be precise.

In Japan, when we say "university" its usually about what we call a "4-nen-sei-daigaku" in other words a "4-year-university". And what we call a "4-year-university" requires its students to be a university student for 4 years or more in order to graduate.

Now, most students finish most of their classes during the first couple of years. By the time they are in their 3rd or 4th year, they would only need to take maybe 1 or 2 classes a week. They do need to take at least 1, because they don't let you finish them in your earlier years, but you'd still have a lot of time to do job hunting or part time jobs or travel or what not. But you can't get your BA yet.

It's also possible to do a year or two at a different university and pass an exam to be transferred to another university to finish the rest of the years/credits. But still, you need to be a university student for 4 years in one way or another.

Meanwhile, junior colleges are very common in Japan, especially among women, and that requires students to attend for only 2 years. Technical colleges are common as well, both for men and women, and that's for 1 or 2 years. And all these colleges are quite promising in terms of job opportunities. In fact, many large organizations appreciate technical college graduates for their high qualifications on certain skills, while others appreciate junior college graduates for their high skills but also because they can start from lower wages because of their younger ages.

So for those who want to start working earlier, or want to finish higher education earlier for one reason or another, 2-year colleges have been common options for generations. But the thing is, you need to be at least 18 to obtain senior high school graduate qualifications, so it's not like a low-teen kid can start being a lawyer or something. And a lot of professions do require you to graduate a 4-year-university.

But as long as you're over 15, you're lawfully free to work or even found companies and become rich, which a lot of the youth have been doing So, not being able to obtain a BA until you're 22 is not really much of a disadvantage.