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A Vision of Japanese University Students Today

Marcus Grandon has created this video that uses a class of Japanese students to educate us about their views of university education in Japan:

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19 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - December 22, 2011 at 5:33 am

Categories: General Japan Tags:

LolaDontRun

how many Japanese university graduates cannot find full-time jobs ONE YEAR AFTER GRADUATION?

Just curious…. thanks in advance for all replies.

Wumwum

Watch the video, its 38% at 1:30

http://hanlonsrzr.blogspot.com/ Cynicantisthenes

Sadly, how many of those who do not in one year, find good work ever, in Japan?

Learn English, study abroad, stay there or work for a foreign company in Japan. Eggs in one basket a bad idea in an aging country.

http://profiles.google.com/kougeru Kougeru Matsuoka

What? “Good” work is kinda hard to find anywhere without connections and/or luck. Japan has a 4.1% unemployment rate compared to USA’s 8.6. So they must be finding SOME work eventually. The amount of debt is the most amazing part though.

http://hanlonsrzr.blogspot.com/ Ἀντισθένης

What are the comparative youth unemployment rates? For recent graduates? These compared to the state of each economy? A lot that needs to be teased out. I wasn’t comparing Japan and the US in my original comment, BTW. Many Japanese, like my compatriot Canadians, have an obsession with doing so, but the US is a poor point of comparison on health, education, inequality and the like. To be fair, if they did not blow so much on foreign misadventure they’d have the funds to fix all of their own problems… and ours.
Tony D

Considering Japan has jobs that consists of doing things like handing out tissue paper on the sidewalk or standing by a carpark entrance to wave pedestrians/cars through, I don’t really trust the unemployment rate to provide an accurate view of the job market…
Bob

Be careful about comparing unemployment rate of 4.1% in Japan to the U.S. The employment situations are vastly different and it isn’t really an “apple to apple” comparison. Here is a quote from the U.S. Department of Labor;

“The conventional unemployment rate misses a great deal of labor
underutilization in Japan, namely workers on reduced hours for economic
reasons and discouraged workers (those who want a job, but are not
actively seeking work because they believe their search will be futile).
A more broadly defined rate which takes these other elements of
underutilization into account increases the Japanese rate beyond that of
the U.S. rate.”

Source: http://www.bls.gov/fls/flsfaqs.htm

http://profiles.google.com/kougeru Kougeru Matsuoka

You misread. at 1:30 it says “38% of us believe what we are learning in school will be of no relevance to us after graduation”

Probably talking about basic classes like math, history and such when they are planning on being something that doesn’t use those.

Bob

Check out this article in the Japan Times. The unemployment rate for new university graduates was 9% last year.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20110525a3.html

Ap

A crapple user… disgusting.

Very interesting statistics though.
Alex

Just a quick note on the “67% of us will graduate with no debt”. A lot of people might assume that’s because of how university is funded in Japan, but actually it’s purely cultural. Most Japanese students get everything paid for by mummy and daddy and part-time jobs are taken on simply to fund drinking and European holidays. This is in contrast to the UK where many more university students take on the financial burden of university themselves.

supercub

If parents can afford university tuition, it’s a wonderful gift to their children. Many parents see their child’s education as part of their parenting responsibility. I don’t know why you need to be a prick about it. Culturally speaking, the norm in the U.S. is to have parents fund the majority (if not all) of a child’s secondary education. Perhaps the UK is the exception. Why are parents so callous and miserly in the UK? See what I did there?

http://profiles.google.com/kougeru Kougeru Matsuoka

I’m sure a lot also has to do with actual costs. It’s no secret that the United States College education system is (in most places) greatly overpriced thanks partially to over-funded sports programs and the other factors. Out of the dozens of friends I have in college not a single one as a parent that can a afford even 40% of the tuition fees, leaving the students to also have to take loans and such.

supercub

$50,000 a year for many schools and climbing. It’s crazy. Yes, I should say that students in the U.S. often graduate with debt, despite their parents’ funding of their education. If U.S. tuition was comparable to Japan, students wouldn’t graduate with mountains of debt. By most accounts, the typical U.S. college education is superior to the Japanese equivalent, but it also costs much more.

Hraesvelgr

$50k/year for “many” schools is wrong, but yeah, it is unreasonably expensive. Of course, like most things in America, post-secondary is for-profit, so what can you expect…

Alex

I didn’t mean to come across as a prick about it, but what I said was not incorrect. There’s a lot in the UK news at the moment about university tuition fees rising, and there have been lots of protests related to it. So I read this article and watched the video with that context in mind and knowing a lot of British visitors to the site who haven’t visited Japan would draw unfair comparisons, especially as the screenshot James chose was the one about student debt. My tone might’ve been off, but my point stands.

supercub

Makes sense. Cheers.

(I overreacted to your tone being a little off)

Trololmon

video made me a bit sick, camera waaay to shaky

InternetJerkFace

Congrats on having motion sickness.

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