For more than 25 years, NIC has provided international education for more than 8,500 students from Japan. Considering our long history of providing such education, it is without question that NIC leads Japan in the number of international bound graduates who have been fortunate enough to participate in our program and utilize their learning abroad.
The vision behind this success began in 1983, when Dr. Kiyoshi Nagai and Dr. Kazuko Zukie Hirota met Mr. Mark Chilton, the chairman of Chilton Engineering and a Rotarian from Elko, Nevada, and discussed the possibility of bringing Japanese students to Elko. The proposal for this was accepted by the Northern Nevada Community College (NNCC) and the Elko Rotary Club, and also endorsed by the State of Nevada and Rotary International.
In Japan, the NIC exchange program was supported by Mr. Kyoichi Itoh, Executive International Director of Rotary International (1985-87) and Mr. Kenjiro Hirashima, chairman of the District Governor's Board and it was introduced to Rotary clubs throughout Japan.
In 1986, NIC expanded the program to include college students and other young adults and began an association with the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR). The following year, NIC and UNR began discussing the possibility of a branch campus in Japan to teach English as a second language and to prepare students to enroll at UNR or other American universities. An agreement was signed in 1987 by NIC and the University of Nevada System to create the University of Nevada, Reno-Japan (UNR-J). Classes began in Tokyo in April of the following year.
In its ongoing commitment to international education, NIC has expanded its consortium and students now have the option of transferring to over 200 colleges and universities in the U.S., the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, Switzerland, and other places. Whereas other schools have come and gone over the past 25 years, NIC has survived, no doubt due to its excellent program.
In addition to the main campus in Tokyo, in April 2012, NIC has newly opened the Osaka campus which runs the same curriculum as the NIC main campus. NIC International High School was also established in the same year. The high school program enables students to study the NIC mainstream curriculum concurrently with the high school curriculum, and this allows NIC high school students to attend an overseas university right after completing the high school curriculum while at NIC.
The Institution’s name has changed:
- Established as "University of Nevada Reno, International Division in Japan" in 1988.
- Changed to "University of Nevada, Reno-Japan" in 1990.
- Changed to "Nevada-California International Consortium of Universities & Colleges in Japan (NIC)" in 1994.
- Changed to "NIC International College in Japan" in 2007.