（10）Conditions of Students

Students returning to school from the battlefield or industries at the end of the war faced severe economic hardship. Not only were there the food and housing shortages that effected the entire population, but most students could no longer rely on their parents for maintenance and were forced to undertake employment to support their studies. The Ministry of Education attempted to assist students find part-time jobs through the Working Students' Assistance Association, renamed the Students' Assistance Association in January, 1947. The Ministry also constructed a number of student dormitories in Tokyo and in large provincial cities. Scholarships were made available on a wider scale than during the war from the Greater Japan Scholarship Foundation, later renamed the Japan Scholarship Foundation in August, 1953. Even so, scholarships could be extended to only a small percentage of the total student population, and the individual amounts were inadequate to cope with the rampant inflation of the postwar years.

Students themselves formed a number of organizations to ease their economic difficulties: between 1946 and 1947 the Students' Livelihood Conference, the Students' Dining Hall Federation, and the National Federation of School Cooperative Associations were established by student initiative.

In addition to these livelihood organizations, students became increasingly active in the political sphere. Democratic, self-governing student councils were formed on the various campuses, and, in order to oppose increases in university tuition many of these councils combined to form the Zengakuren (National Federation of Students' Self-government Associations) in September, 1948. Further politicization of the student body resulted from the decision of the Occupation authorities to take a firm anticommunist stand. Between 1949 and 1950, an adviser of GHQ, Dr. Walter C. Eells visited a number of university campuses and, while discussing academic freedom, Eells spoke out strongly against communism. His lectures were poorly received by the students, who interpreted them as propaganda and subsequently came to oppose Occupation policy in general. The most radical-leftist elements of the student body, who were central in the Zengakuren organization, resorted to illegal activities in 1950 and came under heavy criticism both on and off campus. By 1952, these radical students had adopted a two-front approach which included on-campus democratization struggles and street demonstrations.