I thought something similar to the TL when I read Hibiki's response to Noro, her explanation about her upbringing immediately came to mind. Also, I feel like we're often lectured in media (Japanese as well as western) that we shouldn't choose schools or location based on romantic interest. I mean, it's one thing if you have a very specific future in mind and following your romantic interest would mean giving up on that. But I honestly don't think this is super common. Most of the kids I went to school with had no idea what to do even as they graduated high school, and what they went for after that was more or less whim. And if that's the case, what difference does it even make if you go for some generic option close to where your SO is? You can figure out what you wanna do there. Japan's always like, AS A 13-YEAR OLD YOU MUST DECIDE YOUR ENTIRE FUTURE RIGHT NOW. And if you don't have a huge-ass dream and pursue it relentlessly sacrificing everything else in the process, you're irresponsible. I ain't saying the job market is super forgiving or anything, but it's just unreasonable to expect kids to be capable of foreseeing what their ideal path is. Even if you do have a huge dream (professionally), there's absolutely no guarantee there will even be any demand for it by the time you graduate and enter the workforce, so you may very well have to give up at that point after all, even if you check all the boxes and score the best grades in the country. Given that it's all so random anyway for most people, just let people do what they want.