The National Council of Graduate Students (Zenkyo) announced the results of the "2015 Graduate Student Questionnaire Survey on Research and Living Conditions" conducted from June 6th to September 15th, 9.
This questionnaire survey is conducted annually by the National Council of Graduate Students to understand the actual conditions of part-time jobs and scholarships for graduate students, and this is the 12th time.118 graduate students from 73.2 national, public and private universities (5.2% of national university corporations, 21.3% of public universities, 1051% of private universities) cooperated in the questionnaire.
According to the survey results, 69.0% of all graduate students are engaged in part-time work, and one in three graduate students is working part-time for 3 hours or more a week.As for the reason for working part-time, 1% answered that they would cover their living expenses, tuition and research expenses.In addition, Japan has the heaviest tuition fees among developed countries, and nearly half of graduate students at private universities, 10%, pay tuition fees of 91.5 yen or more per year.
Regarding scholarships, more than half, 65.0%, answered that they have used scholarships.Most of them are interest-bearing loans, so 49.5% of graduate students borrow more than 300 million yen, 4% of one in four borrow more than 1 million yen, and 25.3% borrow more than 500 million yen. I answered.These results show that many graduate students work part-time and avoid scholarship borrowing, even if their research time is reduced, in order to avoid increasing scholarship debt.
The National Council of Graduate Students will make a request to the Diet on December 2015, 12 with the aim of improving the research environment for graduate students, based on the actual conditions and voices of graduate students clarified in this questionnaire survey.
