Most university students believe that low wages and too few entry-level jobs are problems they would face when entering the job market, a survey by the Professor Huang Kun-huei Education Foundation showed yesterday.
The survey, conducted with a focus on “outlook on job prospects and economic conditions” among the university students, showed that 78.8 percent of respondents expected problems finding a suitable job for an adequate salary.
It also showed that 70.5 percent of them agreed that “obtaining a tertiary education degree is the main way for those from low-income families to lift themselves out of poverty,” even though 64.5 percent agreed that “studying to get a degree is a costly investment with low returns.”
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
Foundation chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) said that a previous survey found that 40.4 percent of students questioned the value of tertiary education, so the latest poll focused on the reason for students’ doubts.
The latest survey showed that 65.6 percent felt uncertain about the future and did not know the direction their life is taking, while 39.2 percent said their schools do not offer quality education that would help them acquire skills that would be useful in the job market.
It also showed that 37.6 percent viewed their field of study as not offering good job prospects, 37.5 percent said their field of study does not match their interests, and 12.5 percent said they did not have the skills needed to get a job.
A large number of survey participants said they do not have a good prospect for getting a job after graduation, at 39.5 percent, of whom 54.5 percent said they believe they can only get a low-wage job, 50.1 percent said they are worried about becoming unemployed upon graduation and 37.1 percent said Taiwan lacks opportunities for young people, it showed.
“All this indicates that we have serious problems with our tertiary education system,” Huang said, urging the Ministry of Education to work toward solutions.
National Taiwan Normal University College of Education dean Chen Hsueh-chih (陳學志) said that Taiwan has for years been underperforming in terms of wage growth and people were increasingly facing higher costs of living.
About one-third of the nation’s industries could not keep up with price increases indicated in the consumer price index, Chen added.
“I hope the government can work to solve the low-wage problems and constrain housing prices to reasonable levels,” Chen said, adding that this would give graduates hope.
The survey was conducted from Jan. 1 to Feb. 6 and received 5,398 valid questionnaires from students at public and private universities, as well as vocational colleges.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
RSS