Japan Press Weekly

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2020 August 12 - 18 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

More than half of graduate students suffer income loss amid coronavirus crisis

A national council of postgraduate students on August 11 published its survey results indicating that more than half of postgraduate students suffered losses of income amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The survey was conducted online between June and July in order to assess how the COVID-19 situation affected graduate students’ academic and everyday lives.

According to the survey, 42.7% of the respondents said that they experienced a decline in income “partially” and 10.4% “entirely”.

In response to a question about the economic impacts on livelihoods and studies, 37.3% said that they cut down on daily expenses such as food, 35.4% replied that they have difficulties in buying books and other necessary items for their studies, and 33.2% that they cannot do fieldwork.

As classes went online and libraries closed temporarily, 47.7% of the respondents had to pay extra expenses to deal with the situation. Of them, 26.3% spent more than 50,000 yen in this regard.

Asked how the campus lockdown impacted research activities, 71% complained that they lost access to books and documents in libraries and 62.6% cited a decrease in opportunity to have discussions and conversations with their academic advisors.

The national council head Umegaki Midori said, “If this situation is left unaddressed, it will lead to a serious deterioration in academic research and in training of high-level professionals in various fields including the medical and legal fields. The government should set up a tuition exemption program and a scholarship program for graduate students as it did for undergraduate students.”

Past related articles:
> JCP opposes Education Ministry’s move to impose higher tuition on national university students [June 8, 2020]
> Students’ economic and learning situations adversely affected by COVID-19 [April 22, 2020]